Thank you!
Vote of Thanks
Ruchira Das delivers Vote of Thanks at Silk River Closing Ceremony
Ruchira Das delivered the Vote of Thanks at the Silk River Closing Ceremony on Sat 16th Dec. Here is the transcript for all those not able to be present:
“Our heartfelt thanks to Hon’ble Minister Shri Amit Mitra, Sir Dominic Asquith, Alan Gemmell, Bruce Bucknell and Debanjan Chakrabarti for your presence and your support to Silk River.
Silk River has been possible because of hundreds of people in the UK and India who have contributed to make this ambitious project a reality, and I would like to extend a thanks to each and every one of them!
I would like to especially mention some people and organisations:
The Arts Council of England and the British Council for being the key funders.
Elizabeth Lynch, Ruby Palchoudhuri, Sujata Sen and Nandita Palchoudhuri– you have been involved right from the very conception of this project and have been a constant support and guide – a big Thank you for being there with us throughout!
Thank you to Atri Bhattacharya, Home Secy, West Bengal for his support through West Bengal Tourism which made it possible for us to sail down from Murshidabad to Botanic gardens Kolkata. And thanks to travel writer Kevin Rusbhy for being with us on both the river journeys and describing them in his inimitable style.
Many thanks to Dr. Jayanta Sengupta, Mr Raman and staff of the fantastic Victoria Memorial Hall for the venue for this closing ceremony and the exhibition of the scrolls from next week.
Thank you very much to all the artists who made these beautiful scrolls and to the partners of the project without whom Silk River would not have been possible:
Siddharth & Sangeeta Dudhoria, Sandip Nowlakha, Darshan Dudhoria and family and all members of the Murshidabad Heritage Development Society.
Amitava Bhattacharya, Ananya Bhattacharya, Sreya Sarker, artists and members of Banglanatak.com that coordinates the Rural Craft and Cultural Hubs West Bengal
Shikha Mukerji, artists and members of Crafts Council of West Bengal
Totally Thames Festival, Bath spa University and Long Distance Walkers Association – London and local partner communities in all the locations in the UK.
For the last 10 days, the Silk river group of participants from UK and India have been discovering and engaging with 10 places along the Hooghly …
At each of these places we were met by enthusiastic community members – A big thank you to all of you:
Members of Murshidabad Heritage Development Society ,students and staff members of Don Bosco School, Azimganj, Prosanta Kumar Roy and his family at Cossimbazaar
Ashis Kumar Bagchi, a long time friend and his group of artists, Ranodhir & Kalpana Palchoudhuri of Balakhana, students and staff members of Krishnanagar Academy, Saumish Chandra Roy and family at Nadia Palace.
Neline Mondal, Asim Mondal, Tushar Bhattacharya & Ganges Gurukul school from Chandernagore
The fabulous team at Future Hope Barrackpore led by Basudev Namata, Hattie Crane and Samarjit Guha
Sourendro-Soumyojit who wlecomed us at the Marble Palace
Mr. Manu Goel, DRM, Howrah Division, Eastern Railway
Students, teachers and staff members of Bidya Bharati School Mominpur
Subhra Bose and staff members at Bata Factory, Papia Sarkar, students, teachers and alumni members of Bata School.
Dr. Sharief, Dr. Hameed and scientists at Botanic Gardens
Pradip Chopra, Tamal Bandyopadhyay, Rangan Datta, Anthony Khatchaturian and Pranajit Bose for leading walks in different locations.
I must also thank the production management team of Rex Anthony, Prateek Bagi, Shaunak Sur, Babu Singh, Ashis Adhikary, Bablu Bagdi and Riju Mahali
who made sure that everything and everyone was well taken care of!
None of this would have been possible without the amazing teams at ThinkArts and Kinetika – Tamali Bhattacharya for the coordination, Isha Daga for getting the word out there and Priyanka Chatterjee for doing an exceptional task at motivating and engaging students from the different schools – Jane Ford & Jo Beal for all the outreach and coordination, Jacci Todd and artists from all the 10 communities, Mike Johnston for diligently documenting the entire project, Edwina Rigby for being always there, whether in person or virtually and Gordon Parker for getting us safely along both rivers.
A HUGE thanks to Korak Ghosh for helping with the initial research for Silk River and for orchestrating the journey of surprises along the Hooghly and last but not the least to Ali Pretty for having dreamt this ambitious dream and worked so hard on making it a reality!”
Full project credits can be found HERE.
Silk River Closing Ceremony
