FILM CLUB SCREENING - Cine Lit Fest- To Kill A Mocking Bird (Eng/1962/129mins) Dir. Robert Mulligan. Based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960. Atticus Finch is a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman. Many of the townspeople try to get Atticus to pull out of the trial, but he decides to go ahead. Collab: American Cultural Centre

FILM CLUB SCREENING - Cine Lit Fest- Il Giardino Dei Finzi Contini (The Garden of the Finzi Contini) (Italian/1970/95mins) Dir. Vittorio De Sica. A lyrical war drama based on a book by Giorgio Bassani. In Ferrara, Italy, at the beginning of WWII, anti-Semitism is spreading. Mussolini has passed several laws that forbid Jews from going to public schools, joining the army, or marrying non-Jews. While many middle-class Jewish families flee the country, the Finzi-Continis believe it's safe inside their sprawling estate. As a wealthy, aristocratic Jewish family, they think their luxurious garden walls will protect them from fascism. Until the war, does close in on them. Winner of Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, 1971 Collab: Italian Embassy Cultural Centre

TALK - IHC-NMF Maritime Awareness Lecture Series. Vice Admiral Anup Singh, FOC-in-C, ENC, Vizag, speaks on Untapped Maritime Wealth of India Chair: Admiral (Rtd.) Arun Prakash

DANCE - Group choreography in Kathak of Rabindranath Tagore’s Bhanu Singher Padavali in Braj Bhasha. Choreography: Prof. Amita Dutt, Head, Dept. of Dance, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata Collab: Impresario India

MUSIC - Sitar recital by Saptarshi Hazra, disciple of Netai Basu & Budhadev Dasgupta HCL Concert Series

TALK - Dean Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, speaks on Will India China Grow Together Or Grow Apart?

THEATRE - The Coolie Odyssey (Eng/135mins with interval) Dir. Rajesh Gopie. The play looks at the arrival in South Africa of three Indian immigrants who decide to leave the grinding poverty and hopelessness of their native Calcutta and arrive in Natal to work on the sugar plantations. The plot unfolds as the story-teller - a monkey, with memories of previous human incarnations – types up his story on an old typewriter. His story unveils the life of Ramlall Kihari, an indentured labourer, who arrived in Durban in 1864. We follow Ramlal as he searches for identity, belonging and salvation against the backdrop of those pioneering colonial times. Tickets at Rs.350, Rs.250 & Rs.100 available for IHC members from Jan.1. Open to all from Jan.3 An Old World Culture presentation 

MUSIC - Hindustani Vocal recital by Nila Sinha Roy, disciple of Shanti Hiranand

FILM CLUB SCREENING - Cine Lit Fest- Someone To Run With (Hebrew with English subtitles/2006/120mins) Dir. Oded Davidoff. A heartfelt story of self-discovery based on the best-selling novel by David Grossman. The film is a riveting ride through Jerusalem at the end of a Labrador’s leash. Shy 17-year-old Assaf sets off to track down the owner of a lost dog wandering the streets. In the process, he pieces together the incredible story behind the owner’s disappearance. Tamar, a gifted musician, embarked with her dog on a quest into Jerusalem’s seamy underworld. Assaf, intrigued by this mysterious girl, has no choice but to follow her footsteps until their narratives converge. Collab: Embassy of Israel

BOOK LAUNCH - The Buck Stops Here: My Journey From Manager To Entrepreneur by Ashutosh Garg. Followed by a panel discussion on The Indian Entrepreneur: Opportunities And Challenges Collab: Penguin Books India

MUSIC- Hindustani Vocal recital by Saniya Kulkarni, disciple of Ashwini Bhide

FILM CLUB SCREENING - Cine Lit Fest- Muhafiz (Hindi/1994/126mins) Dir. Ismail Merchant. Music. Zakir Hussain Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Sushma Seth Based upon Anita Desai's 1984 Booker Prize nominated novel In Custody. Deven's position as a professor of Hindi at a local college is only a means to an end. His first love is the Urdu language and in particular Urdu poetry. Deven's multiple (and often stymied) attempts to interview the great Urdu poet, Nur, acts as a metaphor for the clash between modernization and tradition. Collab: Merchant Ivory Productions.

DANCE - WE-ASC World Education Culture Congress presents Ritu Samhara Based on Kalidas’s composition on the six Ritus and their effects on atmosphere, nature and all living beings. Composed & choreographed by Pt. Birju Maharaj. Deepika Reddy, Priya Venkatraman, Jayaprabha Menon, Bimbavati Devi, Paromita Mitra & Parvati Dutta depict the Grishma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemanta, Shishira & Vasanta seasons. Collab: ICCR Courtesy: Shruti Foundation

MUSIC - Winter Jazz Festival presents The Collective- A jazz ensemble from across the globe. Drawing from their ethnic roots, each musician adds a unique colour to their sound, an exciting blend of the spontaneity and harmonic interplay of Jazz with various other musical traditions of the world. Aditya Balani: Guitar & Fretless Guitar Tarun Balani: Drums Noam Wiesenberg: Acoustic Bass Sharik Hasan: Piano Collab: Bridge Music Pvt. Ltd. 

BOOK DISCUSSION - Roswitha Joshi, author of Indian Dreams will be in conversation with Journalists Humra Quraishi & Meera Menezes

IHC MEMBER’S MEET - Migration To Cities- A Burden Or A Blessing? by S. P. Jakhanwal, IAS (Retd.), former Secretary to the Govt. of India, currently Director General, Amity School of Urban Management

THEATRE - Butcher Of Quietly (Eng/75mins) Dir. Sunit Sinha. Prod: Actor Factor. Circa 2010. A woman’s skull, four thousand year old, is stolen from a group of archeologists. The officer incharge of the Forest Department of India deems it as a useless piece of bone. A secret investigation leads us to a dark chapter in the history of mankind – the first ever murder committed in cold blood in a jungle kingdom called Quietly. The skull is Zasha’s, Soola’s wife, who kills her for greed, in his blind pursuit of wealth, status and power. A hilariously dark trial follows. The play reflects on our current politics of indifference and power based on total ignorance of the social good. At times poetic, at times rip-roaringly funny, mostly theatrical, and quietly dark. Tickets at Rs.300, Rs.200, Rs.100 & Rs.50 available for IHC members from Jan.10. Open to all from Jan.12

HEALTH TALK - Know Your Prostate Speaker: Dr. N Subramanian, MS, FRCS, FIMSA, Senior Consultant Urologist, Apollo Hospital Collab: Ranbaxy Urology Specialty