Rahul Bhatia · @rahulabhatia
1st Nov 2013 from TwitLonger
Here's the letter from Tarun Tejpal about his club. I'm not sure if Tehelka has anything to do with it.
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Dear XXX
Great conversation lies at the heart of every robust society. And great metropolises are defined not just by their skyscrapers and civic amenities but also by the intellectual and cultural life they nurture. Their theatres and their museums. Their studios and their restaurants. Their clubs and their engagements.
Keeping this in mind, the team that created the iconic THiNK now presents an exciting and original idea:
PRUFROCK: The Arts & Dinner Club, a private members’ club, designed to be a unique cultural and intellectual hub.
With a carefully curated, by-invitation-only membership, PRUFROCK, is located in the heart of South Delhi – the M Block Market of Greater Kailash II – in a space that spans three floors, each with a distinct mood, all built on a value for ideas.
The club will be a vibrant cultural space, where a highly accomplished, eclectic community of select urban Indians can meet and engage in an atmosphere of great intimacy with eminent people who make and shape the world.
All this over fine drinks and exquisite cuisines created by a celebrity chef.
PRUFROCK offers a rich menu of many other firsts. It promises over a hundred engagements a year with a highly creative programme of top-line speakers and performers drawn from every discipline that impacts our lives.
At the Club, on any given day, you might find a famous writer or filmmaker discussing a work in progress. Or tune into a visiting saxophonist. The menu might include a stand-up comedian, a legendary athlete talking sport, or an astronomer outlining new horizons of science.
But, equally, membership to the Club would mean an invaluable opportunity to listen to those who sit in the country’s hot seats, wielding great power and influence, politicians and businessmen, social activists and spiritual leaders, and engage with the complex mechanics and politics of building India, through conversations held in an atmosphere of rare intimacy.
PRUFROCK, therefore, will be that unique urban phenomenon out of which the high culture and social engagement of legendary cities is born: a space where the life of the mind and senses meet. A contemporary, edgy, live space that evokes both leisure and substance. A space to eat, drink, think. A place full of possibilities. Conversations. Engagements. Illuminations. And, of course always, high aesthetics and pleasure.
Membership for PRUFROCK: The Arts & Dinner Club, will be scrupulously monitored, and will be very limited. The cost of membership has been kept extremely modest – the criterion of PRUFROCK being not means but attributes.
Not money, but a mindset.
XXX, I’m hoping to see you among the members at PRUFROCK for heady evenings built on conversation and on ideas.
Tarun J. Tejpal