The annual Kala Ghoda festival has been around for quite a number of years now. I used to visit it during my college times and always came away happy and impressed by the number of handicrafts on display, the number of entertaining performances by various individuals and by all the small stalls full of artifacts and little knick-knacks! Over the last few years I haven’t had a chance to visit this festival, so this year I vowed not to miss it and miss it I didn’t!!
This year’s festival started on Saturday and I reached there in the evening. As I approached the first thing that caught my eye was the number of people who had had the same idea as me on a Saturday evening! I saw mothers with their children showing them the artifacts around, there were families who were out for an enjoyable evening, young couples who had come to see the festival for the first time and quite a few foreign tourists clicking away on their cameras! I too joined them and took pictures of abstract and non-abstract art that was made of metal and other materials. The trees had some beautiful stars and a cute huge bulb!!
I was in time for the Dance Festival, and managed to wriggle my way near the barricade in front of the stage. The first act was a Bharatnatyam performance by renowned dancer Malavika Sarukkai. She enthralled me with her graceful movements and beautiful facial expressions! I think I connected more with the dance as I too have learnt this for 4 years during school!! After watching her performance I wanted to start learning Bharatnatyam once again!!
Next there was a puppet show and not being too fond of the same, I gave up my place to a couple of children and their mother to watch the show. While the puppets enthralled the children, I walked around the stalls set up by different NGOs and looked at their displays. Some of them tempted me to loosen my purse strings and I came away with a couple of necklaces, one of which was a nice brass one and the other a medley of small black beads!
The next act in the Dance Festival was a few dance performances by the team of Salsa
On Sunday, the air was filled with fun and excitement, as the news about the festival had spread and in response to it there were a lot more people around this Sunday evening! As I approached the entrance I saw a huge pyramid made of buckets, mugs and plastic taps - this was to send a message - Save Water! It looked awesome! Next to the bucket pyramid there was this huge umbrella which could definately shelter a family of 5 during the monsoons! ;-)
I made a beeline to the stage as I heard drums being played and I was in for a lovely surprise.. There were these 4 young guys playing an assortment of drums - even one playing a dhol! Their jugalbandi was awesome to hear and their charged up energy was felt all through the crowd near me. These guys called themselves F.A.D. the Percussion Group and they were most definately fabulous!!
After this perfomance there was a break wherein I wandered around the various stalls. I bought a lovely black t-shirt with a lion on it from the BNHS stall where the proceeds go to the well being of animals. There were great many bargains happening and it was fun to watch people shop like there was no tomorrow!! As my tummy growled I made my way towards the food stalls and had some pani-puri, some jaipur chaat and topped it up with a whiskey cream gelato! After eating my ears caught strains of music and I made my way once more to the stage to hear and watch Suneeta Rao belt out hindi movie songs. She got the crowd invloved and soon everyone was singing along with her.
After this performance, I looked at my watch and finally headed home - a lovely weekend indeed!!
3 comments:
I think the Bharatnatyam video was reeeeeally nice.
nice..i think i shuld have gone for it too...not gonna miss it da next time...
Well u can still go for it! The festival goes on till 15th Feb!
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