My Lovely Friend Aruna

Not mine alone. She profoundly influenced many lives. One learnt so so much just being with her . What she had was an incredible zen quality; that Buddha gift of eliciting the best from everyone around her; forever subliminally teaching/influencing/shaping them to be better versions of themselves.

She carried her achievements, her erudition, lightly…and what an incredible list of achievements: founder member, Cinemaya: the world’s first journal on South Asian cinema. In 1991 she founded NETPAC: to further the cause of oft overlooked but significant Southeast Asian cinema. This sophisticated Sorbonne-educated, multi-lingual woman was friend/mentor to Mani Kaul, Kumar Shahani; on first name terms with leading film directors/ stars : Adoor, Ray, Kiorastami, Gautam Ghosh, Resnais, Mrinal Sen, Majid Majidi, Truffaut, Aparna Sen, Marlon Brando, Shabana, Peter Brooks, Jean Claude Carrière, Shyam Benegal. Jury member/chair at film festivals round the world: Cannes (Camera d’Or), Busan, Tehran (Fajr), Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Singapore, Las Palmas…

I’d known Aruna professionally through the nineties in my innings as journalist with India Today, Outlook and subsequently as television anchor/producer of Centrestage—my weekly show on culture. As a journalist you meet a whole cross section of people: flavours-of-the-week, good, bad, interesting, vacuous. The bonus: once in a while you get to meet some inspiring, exceptional ones. And keep them as friends. Aruna was that bonus friend for me: interviewed her for a segment on my TV show; stayed back for a drink, a chat that extended late into the night. She talked. I listened, learned. Over many evenings over the next few years.

She was indefatigable. At 70-odd , this long time Buddhist conceptualised and pulled off a Buddhist film festival that went on to become an annual feature on the Delhi cultural calendar till the funding she’d worked so hard to raise dried up. Ten years ago, she helped documentary filmmakers Uttarakhand-based Neelima and Pramod Mathur set up Utsav Tola, a literacy/skilling project for local kids. She hosted fund raisers, got her Cipla owner rakhi brother Yusuf Hamid to allot CSR funds to get the project off the ground. To date the NGO has transformed the lives of 400 local children.

In 2009 my ambitious curatorial project encompassing art/video/theatre/literature/ film ran into a roadblock . I needed to organise a Marquez-inspired festival of magic realism-themed films at very short notice. Aruna held my hand, steered that film segment of the event through, gratis. Her professionalism, programming expertise was salutary. Her utter selflessness and capacity to extend herself for a friend bonded me to her for life

Her soirées were legendary: reminiscent of Parisian literary salon gatherings where the food, company, conversations were always superlative. Never mind poor Rosy, the loyal chef who’d magically produce food for thirty rather than the ten people she’d been told to prep for most times! Aruna Annapurna’s table was the gift that kept on giving. Painters, writers, dancers, politicians, television anchors, journalists, diplomats and designers gathered in her salon spilling over with books and art works, reflective of the eclectic interests of our soigné hostess who was also an accomplished Sumi-e painter!

The accolades kept coming: decorated as Cavaliere della Stella della Solidarietà Italiana by the Italians , as Officieur des Arts et des Lettres by the French, trustee of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India, acclaim as the author of multiple books on Asian cinema...honours she carried ever so lightly. She remained who she was : radiant creature of light delighting in everyday pleasures; deeply immersed in her Buddhist practice; totally detached from the pother about her!

I’ll miss you Aruna: that open heart, that Renaissance spirit; that generous open house space you commanded, reigned over. I’ll never be able to romance Delhi without you because you were synonymous with Delhi for me. Always.

See you on the other side, my friend. Boy, it’ll be nice to hear that Dietrich voice, look into those warm cocker spaniel eyes, hear that ringing laugh again.

Sunil Mehra is a Delhi-based journalist, TV producer and anchor