In February, close to my shifting to Calicut, went to see the Kerala Literature Fest (KLF) and attend a food fest with Anwarka and his two children. It’s been sometime I actually hadn’t been on a family outing and was nice to be around them, though I did miss my own.

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We missed the author Shoba de’s talk as we were a bit late  I got introduced to more people and friends of Anwarka , Akhil Komachi a wonderful photographer and traveler, there was Dr. Suresh’s Son Appu, and met up with Alaka , Wafaa , and RK – all mentioned above were active volunteers of IPM and whole bunch of other artists and people – a creative crowd from different areas of creativity!!

Soon after it was getting dark and it was time to head out for the food fest 🙂 The food fest was based off areas in and around Calicut, like Mangalore , Bhatkal , Kannur – Tellicherry

The whole place had a nice ethnic looking ambiance, though it was less crowded than expected probably because of the food fest happening at the other end.

At the food fest and the literature fest we met up with some friends from an IPM volunteer group. This group has students from various colleges and courses, adults who are retired as well into business and salaried people etc. One thing I noticed with the group is that they are very close nit.

There was a fashion designer- Meraki (Threading with love) who was taking care of the young college students like big sis and yet getting down to their level like she is one of them. There was a few students from Calicut medical college who had once helped organize a charity fund raising event for IPM – Anwarka was to treat them for their involvement and hard work.

At 1st we walked around the stalls looking and finding out what each food preparation was, then we shortlisted certain stalls and after which we shortlisted the preparations! 🙂

WE found a table and sat down to try out different kinds of food preparations from in and around Calicut, Talking, joking, pulling each other legs. With more jokes and chats, I couldn’t help notice the feeling of closeness among the volunteer group.

After stuffing ourselves, we bid good bye to the medical students. I had the pleasure of meeting an old “EIS Jeddah “product!!  Even though I was from the Dammam School, Never the less, was a big surprise to meet someone who studied in EIS – Embassy of India School. Actually I was used to referring it as IES – Indian Embassy School. It was from her I came to know that people just addressed it like that but the proper term  was EIS . She  is now the principal of Brainy stars – international Montessori Calicut  , and also talented and creative photographer femslens

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It had  been a very long time since, I had the chance to attend a social gathering. Had a wonderful time, trying new food, meeting new people, finding people from the old days 🙂 The food fest carried owns for the next two days but unfortunately we were supposed to leave for Pondicherry the next day so had to miss those days out.

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