Kuwait City [Kuwait], May 18: The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCCAL) hosted the official launch of Sadaaqa: Partnership & Cultural Kinship – Conversations with Pioneering Indians & Kuwaitis, authored by Chaitali Banerjee Roy, at the National Library of Kuwait on Sunday, 17 May 2025.
The book was officially released by Dr Mohammed Al Jassar, Secretary General of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, and H.E. Paramita Tripathi, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, in the presence of the author, diplomats, cultural figures, members of the ruling family including HE Sheikha Salem Ali Al Sabah, Padmasri Sheikha Shaikha Al Sabah, Sheikha Souad Al Sabah, intellectuals, members of the media, and distinguished guests from Kuwait and the international community.
The event celebrated the deep-rooted partnership, civilisational links, and cultural kinship between India and Kuwait. Sadaaqa, meaning friendship, began as an audiovisual cultural project in January 2022. It has now taken the form of a book that preserves stories of migration, trade, entrepreneurship, memory, hospitality, shared values, and cultural exchange.
Authored by renowned cultural journalist, broadcaster, and documentarian Chaitali Banerjee Roy, the book presents an interesting collection of conversations with pioneering Indians and Kuwaitis whose lives and work reflect the enduring relationship between the two countries. The foreword has been written by Sheikha Altaf Salem Al Ali Al Sabah, noted anthropologist, and one of Kuwait’s leading voices in heritage and cultural preservation.
In his address, Dr Mohammed Al Jassar welcomed the gathering and described the occasion as a celebration of “a profound human and cultural bond deeply rooted in history.” He said the book documents the historic ties between Kuwait and the Republic of India, a relationship that has gone beyond mutual interests to embody “cultural kinship” and social harmony.
The event was attended by H.E. Paramita Tripathi, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, along with several ambassadors and members of the diplomatic community. Also present were leading Kuwaiti cultural personalities and several of the individuals featured in the book.
Ambassador HE Mrs Paramita Tripathi appreciated Ms Roy for her efforts in authoring such a book, which brings out the deep historical, cultural, and people-to-people ties between India and Kuwait, shaped over centuries through trade, culture, familial ties, and mutual trust. Referring to the different stories of people in the book that present a wide spectrum of connections and experiences, Ambassador Tripathi described the book as a timely tribute to the invaluable contribution of the one million-strong Indian community to Kuwait’s development, the friendship that exists between the two peoples and the enduring strength of India-Kuwait bilateral relations.
Sadaaqa features a wide range of well-known personalities whose stories highlight different dimensions of India-Kuwait ties. These include Sheikha Souad Al Sabah, whose love for India and Mumbai inspired the first episode of the Sadaaqa audiovisual series; Sheikha Halah Bader Al Mohammed Al Sabah, known for her deep engagement with India’s luxury travel sector; Padma Shri Sheikha Shaikha Al Sabah, the first Kuwaiti to receive one of India’s highest civilian honours for her contribution to yoga; Dr Lubna Al Qadi, a noted social scientist with deep personal and intellectual connections to India, and Tony Jashanmal, whose family’s commercial history in the Gulf dates back to the First World War era.
The book also documents the journeys of pioneering Indian families and entrepreneurs in Kuwait and the Gulf, including Dhiraj Oberoi of Kitco, one of Kuwait’s oldest locally made food manufacturers; Ravi Kohli of Dawat, whose family was associated with the early Indian school movement in Kuwait; and Kuldeep Singh Lamba, who built Al Mailem into one of Kuwait’s major automotive companies, S K Wadhawan, founder of Samara Group of Companies, a leading automotive spare parts distributor in the Middle East.
In her remarks, Chaitali Banerjee Roy expressed gratitude to NCCAL and Dr Al Jassar for supporting the project and hosting the launch. She described herself as “an example of how Kuwait can embrace an expatriate,” adding that her work was driven by a passion for learning and a desire to give something meaningful back to a country that had given her so much.
Roy recalled arriving in Kuwait in 2001, homesick and unsure of how she would adapt to life in a new country. She said the seeds of Sadaaqa were planted in the apprehension that many stories of this shared history could disappear if they were not documented. Sadaaqa: Partnership & Cultural Kinship is published by Har-Anand Publications, New Delhi.