Alliance Francaise in association with Arangham Trust and Murugappa Chettiar Trust conducted a 3 day Cultural Fest to celebrate the 73rd Birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

It was inaugurated in great style by Prof S Ramachandran VC, University of Madras at the Senate Auditorium. People from the Tibetan Community residing in Madras, along with students of French at the University were eagerly waiting for the lecture conference by Mr. Claude Arpi a reputed writer, journalist and historian on French Explorers during the period 1864-1950.

This cultural weekend organized by Alliance Française in collaboration with The University of Madras, Arangham Trust and Murugappa Chettiar Trust, has a long driven French connection. The Roof of the World has seen many explorers, but the most predominant being a French Lady Alexandra David-Néel (1846-1969) who had conquered many hearts with her passion. Arpi termed the other explores “crude” and were either on sponsored missions by the Government or on Scientific Exploration trips.

In a phenomenon where old maps were drawn by countries like Great Britain, Russia, France driven by a mere interest of colonization, Tibet saw its first foreigner to visit Lhasa since the  existence of this world. It was none other than Alexandra David Néel in 1924, who with her open mind and the thirst to explore had visited the Roof of the World.

Mr. Arpi reasoned out how it was possible for a French lady to scale great heights, “Alexandra at the age of six set off to the Tour de France on a fixed pinion bicycle”.
David-Néel is also fondly remembered as the “Demon of Travel”, she went on to renew her passport at the age of 101!

The photo gallery can be viewed here.
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The impetus at the inaugural was primarily to cultivate cultural consciousness among the Tibetans residing in India and all around the world and project the positive dimensions and its rich cultural heritage. Tibet once had been a Last Frontier to many explorers and has been still the most extraordinary barrier to cross, but now the Lost Frontier.