Dinner at Renuka Chowdhury's Delhi residence unites women achievers

It was an evening to raise a toast to women power when Renuka Chowdhury, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member, who has always been quite vocal about women’s rights, hosted a

dinner

and honoured women achievers at her residence.
Work discussions dominated the do as she introduced her guests to each other explaining in detail about their work areas. The chief guests of the evening were Jaya Bachchan and Gursharan Kaur wife of former PM Manmohan Singh.

Supriya Sule (L) and Gursharan Kaur

When Renuka had to introduce Jaya to one of her guests, she gave a long description of her work in Bollywood and politics and concluded with, “Famous Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan is her husband.”

Husain Dalwai (L) and Sanjay Singh

A unique camaraderie
After Jaya arrived, Gursharan Kaur went to meet her, and both of them spent most of the evening together. Even as Jaya was her usual quiet self, she seemed to have enjoyed the performance of Bharatanatyam dancer Khushi Raizada, 16, who was also one of the awardees. Everyone loved her performance so much, she had to perform twice!
Renuka ensured that she had photos with all her guests. The shutterbugs were called many times to take group photos. Taking a jibe at one of her photographers, she said, “Ab iss baar aisi photo lena jisme sar bhi aa jaye.”

Kanimozhi (L) and Nachiketa Kapur

Encouraging young women who are achievers in their own fields
The Women Empowerment awards were given as a follow-up to Women’s Day. Talking about the issue, Renuka told us, “The idea is to not restrict celebrating women power to just one day. And this is the first time we have organised this award ceremony. From this year, we are starting the Women Achiever awards, which will be an encouragement to young girls who are entrepreneurs and achievers in their own fields. I think there should be a platform to encourage these young girls and to push them forward. They are pure gold.”
As she was about to tell us how these young women are an inspiration, she was interrupted by her husband Sreedhar Chowdhury and both of them went on to ensure that no one leaves without having dinner.

Vivek Tankha

(L) and Sreedhar Chowdary

Devi Cherian

(L) and Kumari Selja

Navneet Kalra (L) and Kitty Kalra

Khushi Raizada