February
2015
As
I made up my mind to visit the kalaghoda arts festival I realized, this is
going to be my first visit ever , I better be wel informed, have a travel
companion, and not venture out on my own. Well, I did get one travel companion
– a colleague from my office, who, thankfully was equally keen.
I
must say, the KGAF is perhaps the most dis-organized one I have witnessed. They
do not have clear indications, sign boards or guiding arrows to direct public
from the nearest two important railway stations on the central and western
routes. It was quite frustrating, daunting and troublesome to find our way from
the churchgate railway station to the venue! Only thanks to the foolish and
un-helping people and the local police! Useless fellows! Everyone we asked for
directions, ‘allegedly’ either: had no clue, gave a strange look on hearing the
name “Kitab Khana”; gave us wrong directions, gave a stupid look!
Anyways,
by hook or crook, we finally landed at the “venue”, not the one we seeked-
which was KitabKhana to attend sessions on literature. Well, we somehow managed
to elbow our way ‘inside’ the enclosure, but to our dismay, most of the people
there were doing absolutely nothing or were allegedly loitering around, thanks
to the Valentine’s Day fever! Thankfully, it still wasn’t as crowded as
expected, being a weekend holiday. Else I kind of half-expected to find the
entire city on the streets there. All the youngsters present there were only
loitering around, adding to the crowd! [I reckon the KGAF authorities to levy
an entrance fee next time onwards – if nothing, it will help sort out the
crowd].
Thankfully,
my colleague found someone she knew, who was conducting an origami workshop for
kids and parents on the approach steps to what looked like an auditorium.
Interaction with her fortunately was fruitful, despite attending to so many
people, demonstrating paper folds and giving out instructions, was addressing
to us as well. What she was doing, looked interesting and appealing and for a
moment we were tempted to sit down. But we moved on and tried finding our way
to the correct place anyways.
Well,
after wasting so much of time, energy [and even money- we paid the cab fare to
travel a 1 km distance after being lost!] we finally found the ‘help-desk’ and
got hold of the agenda booklet. [Even here, the kids were glued to their
useless cell phones, not even looking up from it, forget helping people out].
We found our way to the supposed venue building, hidden slyly behind the
enclosure tents; even here we were dismayed that we would have to apparently
walk a lot just to reach the buildings! The helpless police also could do
nothing more than give us hopeless glances as we asked for shortest way to
reach behind the tents. Seemingly they were only looking around at all the
activities with bored expressions! [You gotta do something about the boredom disease
in the city-it’s really contagious]. Once we reached what was the venue of one
of the sessions, we found to our dismay, it just got over, as we were even
walking up the steps. It apparently was interesting, at least the host informed
us that. She mercifully directed us to another do, about to start shortly, few
buildings away, and we hesitatingly dragged ourselves toward it, nonetheless,
not wanting to waste time anymore.
It
turned out to be a topic we were not even familiar with, but we decided to
attend it anyways. There was a famous fashion designer, in discussion with the
editor of a fashion magazine, discussing the imperative link between fashion and
feminism and its old connectivity. I did participate by sending out a written
note on something I had on my mind, connected to feminism and degradation of
human values on one side. It was addressed well by both the panelists. I was
satisfied, happy to have taken on a topic so crucial.
Leaving
this one mid-way, we both headed to the next one of our interest- travel
writing. The panel here was bit larger, comprising of five people. Each one, an
extensive traveler, or a writer of several travel books. This included a
foreigner, who turned out to be much wittier than others. I must appreciate
that the panel was carefully chosen and they were making meaningful
conversations that appealed to me. This one too, had to be left mid-way for
want of reaching home on time. Well, I did learn something meaningful, useful
here, and was prompted to find more on the subject, subtly acknowledging that
travel writing could be a thing I was seeking for in near future.
Travel
writing, as I was listening, I found myself totally engrossed, listening
carefully to every word spoken, trying to understand the journey behind each of
the faces, it looked very imploring. I was curious to explore and find out each
one’s experiences as I knew they had a treasure to share, and I made a mental
promise to myself to try and read at least a few books written by each one of
them.
