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June 2002 |
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WELCOME |
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Welcome to Toronto Divyabh Manchanda Consul General of India
It
was in December 2000, at artist, Satish Gujaral’s first seventy-fifth
birthday celebration, that Divyabh Manchanda announced his next posting
will be as Consul-General in Toronto. And
finally in May 2002, he arrived in Toronto to a heart-warming welcome by a
large community of Indo-Canadians and Indians. Prior
to his arrival in Toronto, Divyabh was serving as the Deputy Director-
General in the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi,
for nearly five years. Divyabh, a Stephenian and an IITian, graduated with
BSc (Hons) in Physics from St Stephen’s College, New Delhi in 1973, and
did his post graduation in Physics from IIT Delhi.
He did his M. Phil/Pre-Ph.D. in Bio-Physics at Jawaharlal Nehru
University (JNU) New Delhi. Divyabh married Gayatri, who had done her Masters
in English Literature from Delhi University and subsequently obtained a
teacher's training degree. Joining Indian Foreign Service in 1978, he served in
different capacities at Indian Missions in Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Sofia, Lisbon
and Colombo, before moving to ICCR in New Delhi. At
ICCR, he was responsible for the celebrations marking a millennium of the
temples of love in Madhya Pradesh's Khajuraho town, leading to renewed
interest and the excavation of the largest temple so far, and the
‘Ramayana Around the World’ festival, an 18-month celebration. The
event was organised by the Orient Express, the Madhya Pradesh Government
and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). The
final event commenced on December 10, 2000, with Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee inaugurating 'Ramayana Around the World' and culminating
in a grand finale on December 16 attended among others by Vice President
Krishan Kant. Divyabh
said while it is known that the Ramayana had great influence in Indonesia,
Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand, the organizers found that there were
Ramayana troupes even in Singapore (in the form of Chinese ballet) and
even Russia where Gennady Pechnikov had been acting as Rama for the last
twenty-five years. As Pradeep Anand, a high-tech entrepreneur, an IITian,
mentions, Divyabh “looks more like an IITian than a foreign service
babu.” “We
expect not only the Trade and Technology relations growing with India but
also more cultural activities through his diplomacy with his
ICCR links”, he adds. Divyabh’s
wife Gayatri is an accomplished
painter. “Her travels to different parts of the world and an exposure to
diverse cultures have left their mark on her, but she relies more on moods
to influence the direction of her work”, writes an art critic. They have one son, Arnav, presently a student in India.
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