The room came alive almost immediately, oblivious of the mayhem that prevailed outside because of the near peak hour traffic and bumpy roads. There was little to distract the audience, who got engrossed right from the word go at the session involving the reading of Ms. Premalatha Seshadri's poems.

It was as if the audience and the poet's thoughts were made for each other, through the session in which poems that were read touched almost every facet of life from happiness to sorrow.

Besides the session conducted by Ms. Bhagirathi Narayanan, Mr. Ajit Chitori and Mr. V.R. Anil Kumar, there was also an exhibition of paintings by Ms. Premalatha Seshadri.

Both the poems and paintings, she explains, are creations of ``personal experiences and observations of life''. Beginning with one of her earliest works on landscape in 1968, the exhibition had a collection of her creations on birds and nature of different hues. Several of the works were on South American bark paper.

Born in Bangalore, Ms. Premalatha Seshadri was trained in painting at the College of Arts and Crafts in Chennai and at the Homsey College of Art, Middlesex Polytechnic in London, as a British Council Scholar.

She has exhibited in solo and group shows all over the country and has received awards from Karnataka State Lalit Kala Akademi and Department of Culture, Government of India fellowship for painting and British Council scholarship and visitorship.

She has taught art, has been a guest lecturer and has done design and print making at block printing studios in Hyderabad, Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi and at Gandhigram, Madurai.

The exhibition of her paintings and the poem reading session, under the aegis of the Prakriti Foundation, was organised on Saturday evening at the Jidoka Store on 1st Lane, Nungambakkam High Road.

By N. Ravi Kumar