Cultural fest a whiff of fresh air for the capital.

OLD TIMERS ruing the gradual decline of the cultural movement in the Bihar capital had something to cheer about last week with a sixday festival of classical Indian art, music and dance, bringing back memories of the good, old days.

Takshila Utsav, which concluded on Monday, had everything that the connoisseurs of art and culture had hankered after in recent years. It featured noted exponents of Indian classical music, leading shayars ( Urdu poets), qawwals and devotional singers whose virtuoso performances left the audiences craving for more. It also hosted a literary talk and an innovative photo exhibition, " Patna Kaleidoscope" which featured exclusive pictures of the state capital taken over the past several decades. The exhibition showcased the changing landscape of the ancient city with a unique history of its own. The meticulously selected photographs from diverse sources, which juxtaposed diametrically different vignettes of city life in different periods, turned out to be a big draw for art lovers.

Organised on the campus of Patna University's College of Art and Craft under the aegis of Takshila Educational Society, which works for revival of the classical movement in Bihar, the festival drew large crowds every evening.

Starting off with the photo exhibition, the festival went on to host the likes of famous Dhrupad exponent Pandit Uday Bhavalkar, bhakti singers Bhavnesh Komakali and Prahlad Singh Tipania, famous qawwal Mohammed Ahmed Khan Warsi and gifted shehnai players Sanjiv and Ashwini Shankar. A mushaira organised in collaboration with the Jashn- e- Bahar Trust of New Delhi featuring prominent Urdu poets like Munawwar Rana also turned out to be a huge success.

The success of the cultural festival has enthused the organisers to make it an annual affair in the October- November period. They had last organised Takshila Utsav in 2006 but secretary of the Society, Sanjiv Kumar, says that he will organise this festival every year from now onwards.

That should be music to the ears of art and culture buffs in the city which has not hosted any major cultural event in the recent years. In 2007, the Nitish Kumar government had tried to revive the tradition of mega cultural nites at the historic Gandhi Maidan during the Dussehra festivities but this could not be continued in the next two years because of floods and drought in large parts of the state.

Till the 1980s, Patna used to play host to the best known names in the field of classical Indian music and dance who loved to regale the city's receptive audience all night long during Durga Puja. But this came to an abrupt end during the 15- year- old Rashtriya Janata Dal regime for different reasons ranging from the lack of patronage to rampant lawlessness.

This is why the Takshila Utsav came as a whiff of fresh air for those who had not had many opportunities to savour the nuances of Indian classical art, music and dance in recent years.

Copyright 2009 India Today Group. All Rights Reserved.

Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company