HEALTH & ECOLOGY/

03 Thu 10.15 A.M
The Folly, Amethyst
Whites Road
Next to Corporation Bank
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014 
Counting Sheep to Sleep?!
Blessed are those who get 8 hours of undisturbed sleep every night!The “SleepFairy” may be fictional, but if there were a real life version,it would be Dr. N.Ramakrishnan. He is the first Board Certified Sleep Specialist to practice in India and established Nithra Institute of Sleep Sciences in Chennai. He is also a certified specialist in Internal Medicine and Critical Care Medicine.
As a respected medical consultant, professor, author, researcher and invited speaker, Dr. Ramakrishnan is the recipient of many awards from prestigious institutions in India and abroad. For a restful, restorative night’s sleep, and a glowing fresh start to your mornings, come hear what Dr. Ramakrishnan has to say!


ARTS & HANDICRAFTS

8 Tue 10.15 A.M
The Folly, Amethyst
Whites Road
Next to Corporation Bank
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014 
The woman who built the unbuildable”
Zaha Hadid was a woman who defied all stereotypes. Born in Iraq in the 1950’s, she rose to iconic heights in the male dominated field of Architecture. She was the first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture prize and the only woman to be awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. She came to be known as the “woman who built the unbuildable” and the “Queen of the curve”.
Deepti Zachariah has a Masters in Architecture from DIA in Germany, and owns Chennai based design studio, Revolution by Design. Deepti worked with Zaha Hadid architects for several years, on commissions including the “Building of the year” in 2014, the Hyder Aliev Merkezi, Azerbaijan and competitions in India, Libya, France and Germany. She also formulates and teaches core design courses at IIT, Madras. Deepti will offer a glimpse of the woman behind the icon with snippets of personal stories, the evolution of Zaha’s practice from being an esoteric studio to a global giant thereby creating a ripple effect in the field of Architecture, and how it applies to practice in
India for Deepti personally.


HEALTH & ECOLOGY/

10 Thu 10.15 A.M
The Folly, Amethyst
Whites Road
Next to Corporation Bank
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014 
Wellness, Wholeness and Healing of the Mind!
Anna Chandy , the first Certified Training and Supervising Transactional  nalyst from Asia, with a specialization in Counselling,is passionate about human development and believes “people have innate resources to maximize their own potential, when supported by a mental health professional”. 
She is a well-known columnist, author, counsellor, mentor and coach to people from diverse walks of life. She also serves as the Chairperson of  The Live Love Laugh Foundation, a Non Profit Organization working in the area o of depression, anxiety and stress, founded by actor Deepika Padukone in 2015.
Join Anna in her discussion about mental wellness, which impacts all  our lives in some ways!


CURRENT EVENTS

17 Thu 10.15 A.M
The Folly, Amethyst    
Whites Road
Next to Corporation Bank
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014 
Outsmart your Smartphone!
Passionate about communicating across cultures and borders in three  distinctive roles - Content specialist & luxury consultant, cross cultural  training expert and a widely published lifestyle writer and blogger, Ashwin Rajagopalan, has been tracking smart phones and wearable’s since 2010 and how they are changing the way we consume content.
Let Ashwin Rajagopalan get you reacquainted with the myriad possibilities that our smart phones offer us. No more fumbling for the silent key on your cell phones... let’s get smart!


HISTORY CULTURE TOURS / PHILOSOHY & RELIGION

22 Tue 10.15 A.M
At Leena Surya Prakash’s
Residence,
24, 1st Cross Street
Sterling Road, Chennai 600 034 
Ganpathi Bappa Morya Pudchya Varshi Lavkarya
This chant reverberates through every home and every street of Maharashtra during the ten days of Ganesh Chathurthi. Ganpathi idols, big and small are installed in homes and in public pandals by the people of the locality. Lord Ganesha is worshipped with great zeal and enthusiasm by the people, accompanied by music, dance, chanting of Ganesh “stotras”and distribution of Prasad like modaks and karanjiyas after the daily pujas.
Our members at IWA have tried to recreate the Ganpathi celebrations from the installation to the Visarjan (immersion) of the God amidst chants of Ganpathi Bappa Morya, Pudchya Varshi Lavkarya, bidding a fond farewell to Lord Ganesha and urging him to come back early next year. They will sing the glory of Ganesha to the beat of drums and dance to the jingle of the Lezims.
Traditional Maharashtrian swadisht upahaar will be served at the end of the meeting.
Please get into the festive mood by wearing your Paithanis,Ilkals, Maheshwaris and Narayanpets.

BOOK DISCUSSION

24 Thu 10.15 A.M
Presidency Club    
Pearl Room, Fairlawns
51, Ethiraj Salai
Chennai 600 008
Madras on your Mind : A City In Stories
Once upon a time by the sea, there was a story – and another and another – and some wandered into these pages to make up a city. So meet, amongst others, a travel guide who falls for a French tourist, a rice merchant with Kollywood dreams, a god whose editor proves elusive, a portly musical lawyer caught in a noir plot, and a man in search of family in the Great Madras Flood. Find yourself, among other places; in Town, at that gastronomic oxymoron, the Udipi cafe, in Velachery, in a fast car on East Coast Road, fleeing the city! It’s all here: the salt in the breeze, the eternal summer, the swing of the sea. It’s Madras on your mind.
“Madras has a multi-faceted identity which we wanted to capture. This is a
story of Madras through the prism of many pairs of eyes,” explains Chitra Viraraghavan, who has co-edited the book along with husband, Krishna Shastri Devulapalli. Various writers, hand-picked by Viraraghavan and Shastri, have come together to create this eclectic anthology.
Chitra Viraraghavan has worked in academic publishing, taught English, and is a book editor, school textbook writer and author of The Americans: A Novel. She is working on her second book, a work of  Historical fiction. Krishna Shastri Devulapalli is a humour writer,cartoonist, columnist and the quintessential Madras-Chennai novelist. His most recent novel is The Sentimental Spy.

MUSIC & PERFORMING ARTS

29 Tue 10.15 A.M
E-Hotel
Express Avenue Mall Gate
1, Patullos Road
Chennai 600 002
Bon Odori - The Japanese Summer Dance!
Bon Odori, simply meaning Bon dance, is a style of dance performed during the Obon festival in Japan, which is held in the month of August. Obon is a three day Buddhist-Confucian festival to honour the departed spirits of one’s ancestors, and has been celebrated for more than 500 years.It is performed during the heat of summer, so the performers wear light cotton kimonos called ‘Yukata’. Originally a dance to welcome  the spirits of the dead, the style of celebration varies in many aspects from region to region. Each region has a local dance, as well as different music. The music can be songs specifically pertinent to the spiritual message of Obon, or local folk songs. Consequently, the Bon dance will look and sound different from region to region.
Kiyomi Prasanna Tanaka a Japanese lecturer at the Soka Ikeda College of Arts & Science for Women, Chennai, who has made Chennai her home, will talk on ‘Fukuchiyama Ondo’, a Bon Odori that is performed in her native region of North Kyoto. The performance will be brought to you by her students. The steps are simple and repetitive and we would love our members to join in and enjoy the dance too.


COOKING SWASHOP

31 Thu 10.15 A.M
The Park         
601 Anna Salai      
Chennai 600 006
Classic vs. Contemporary Demo
History has a value that helps us understand the present and the future. It draws a fine line between what people of the past did, with what people in the present do. It also has the ability to cast a glimpse of what the future can hold in store for us.
The Chefs at The Park will showcase what experts from the past carried out in the culinary world and what is trending by the professionals in the present. They will also share their ideas and beliefs on how contemporary techniques and tastes will define how and  what we eat in the years to come.The team will demonstrate how to take a classic and beloved salad you can find all over the world, “The Caprese” and put a modern and contemporary twist to it. anager and his entire team at The Park for hosting this meeting.
We thank Rajesh Radhakrishnan, General Manager and his entire team at The Park for hosting this meeting.