Friends,
It was a privilege for Sutra to return the hospitality of the Duchess Club of Chennai when its Travel Wing recently visited Malaysia. Indeed, their visit to Sutra House on 9 Feb, 2026 was a special celebratory event.
Two weeks ago, thanks to Rathi Nilakanthan, one of the co-founders of Duchess Club of Chennai, managed to convince its elite members to attend Sutra’s exhibition launch ‘Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom’, on 22 Jan, 2026 at the Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai. They did not disappoint and came in their glamorous gear and impressive number. The exhibition, by the way, was a tribute to the late Dr Dinanath Pathy and the works featured were by 21 well known artists of Bhubaneswar, Chennai & Kuala Lumpur, inspired by Odissi.
Rathi N, also the proactive mover-and-shaker of the Chennai Travel Wing, effortlessly manoeuvred her way into our hearts with her easy charm and elegant demeanour. After all, she was a Malaysian and understood how the multilayered cultures of Malaysia, work. Rathi had moved to Chennai, when she married her Tamilian husband more than forty years ago.
Similarly, another special guest, who was Sutra’s FoS (Friends of Sutra) member and a former Sutra ‘mum’ – Vimala Narayanan, – who was of Malayalam descendant, whose two lovely daughters, almost three decades ago, had studied dance at Sutra. The memories of their Arangetrams are still fresh in our minds. Originally a Chennai-vasi, Vimala on the otherhand, had married a Malaysian doctor more than fifty-two years ago and now lives in Kuala Lumpur.
There you are, these are typical stories demonstrating how Kuala Lumpur and Chennai are intimately connected through a complex cultural, family and ancestral ties.
The Chennai Duchess Travel Wing guests had just visited various tourist spots from Cameron Highlands, Banjaran (Perak) to Malacca and other popular destinations.
At Sutra, we conceived of a program titled ‘Savouring Sutra’ where they would be exposed to the diverse cultural offerings of Sutra, from visual art exhibition of paintings & drawings by the late Dr Dinanath Pathy; Malaysian fashion (Variante, a fashion brand founded by designer Leslie Variyan); a special Kathak solo by Delhi-based dancer, Sushant Gaurav, (disciple of Ustad Fasih Ur Rehman); an Odissi Sthai excerpt from Radhe! Radhe! eventually, to a palate savouring of a special dinner of Malaysian cuisine from Sutra Kitchen and Champur of Jessie Nathan.
We hope the savouring of such multi-diverse ‘Rasa’ from visual art, fashion, dance to cuisine, made perfect by the excellent weather, would tempt other Duchess Club members to make a similar trip to Malaysia, in the future. We, certainly enjoyed sharing our Sutra home with them!
Ramli