‘‘

was padding everywhere! Even in your thighs!”

Tamannaah’s acclaimed director in Baahubali, S.S. Rajamouli, revealed with just weeks to go before the second part’s much-anticipated release that his long-term dream is to do a Baahubali-scale epic cinematic version of the Mahabharata, an announcement that drew cheers.

The conclave ended on a thoughtful note, with leading women public figures, including Kiran Bedi, Leela Samson, Khushboo Sundar and Suhasini Mani Ratnam reflecting on the nature of bias in public life. Most had good words for how the south fared on this count. “I think there is a liberation of the mind here. A person might be conservative in some ways but there’s a liberated mind,” said the acclaimed classical dancer Samson. Bedi, now the lieutenant governor of Puducherry, said she doesn’t “see women in Puducherry as being as unsafe as they are in Delhi, my city. I see greater respect, I see them safer and walking in the late evenings, Puducherry chief minister and much more at peace”.

Not everyone concurred. Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Sabha MP and former Union minister, struck a different note the previous day when he said he would choose to live in north India and that people were “more tolerant and more cosmopolitan in Bihar, UP and Jharkhand”. The Chennai-based radio jockey, RJ Balaji, had a fitting response for him: “We would be most happy to find Mr Ramesh a house in Bihar.” Who said they lacked humour south of the Vindhyas?

Demonetisation is a thought in the right direction, but can India do it at one go? Where is the infrastructure for a less cash economy? We have 2.14 lakh ATMs for 1.3 billion people.”