Kala Ghoda Festival

The Kala Ghoda festival is one of the few things that I like about Bombay. For about 10 days, the Kala Ghoda area and the Rampart row leading up to the Lion Gate gets transformed into a mini-carnival, hosting a cornucopia of events and exhibitions, showcasing the best of Indian (and foreign) culture.

The variety of crowds thronging Kala Ghoda is just mindboggling - ranging from the arty-farty types trying to look uber cool in their unkemptness and jholas or gypsy baubles to the uber fashionable trying to look, well, fashionable in their gucci glares (worn at 10pm, no less) or the micro-est of shorts...and all flavours of people in between. And what better a place to see most of them than at a stall - most of the time I was there, I was volunteering at the Welfare of Stray Dogs stall. While folding gazillions of teeshirts a billion times is no fun, it was more than made up by the people-watching opportunity and watching different people react to the stuff on display and the kind of thoughts they put in while choosing stuff.

I just love it when the Kala Ghoda festival is on - somehow even passing by that area gives me an instant lift and it does help to live jogging distance away from it...which makes sure you pass by it all the time:-)

So yeah, while I did'nt get to attend most of the literary or cultural events because of the stall, I did manage to go around a bit and shoot a few quick pictures, mostly late at night. The only event I attended was Dastangoi and it was SO worth it. For a listing of all events that happened, it may help to visit the Kala Ghoda website or the Kala Ghoda Blog where some people have written about the events they attended.

Above and Below: Dastangoi - the traditional art of storytelling in Urdu was amazingly good fun. Starting with the plea, 'Hamare yahan kehte hain, jiski taali baj gayi, uski izzat utar gayi, so taali na bajayiga, pasand aaye, to waah waah kahiyega' and then going on to recite breath-taking tales of ayyars (spies) and tilism (magic), delivered in a perfect combination of Urdu and Persian, with the perfect intonation and expression made sure that this was amongst the best performance I've seen after the 'Vagina Monologues'. I took a short video too and will try to post it on Youtube once I figure out if I can reduce its size. Oh and yeah, the David Sassoon Library is an amazingly lovely place. While the garden is much much recommended, also recommended is a chillout with a book on a calm weekend.

There was really good art on display and for sale. While I am no connoiseur on art or dont even have pretensions to understand good art, I could'nt overlook this amazingly done umbrella (above) and this roadside gallery of paintings done using feet(below).

Above and Below: This was by far the most popular display at Kala Ghoda this time - the 'aamchi helicoptuk'...damn...how many times have I wished that my taxi/auto would just take wings and fly off over the traffic jams that characterize Bombay..this was the perfect solution:-)

Above: The traditional Indian way of keeping evil out of your hair - the size of this one ensured that a LOT of evil was kept away, lol. I quite liked it...kudos to whoever came up with the idea of hanging this larger-than-life ghost-repellant.Wish I had come up with something similar the year before last to show good riddance to some really bad rubbish.


Ok, since not many people figured out what this meant, I will expound - I met the Harsha guy who did this and he took pains to explain it to me:-) so its not like I figured it out myself!

So this is a life-size fighter plane done up in Khadi. It takes up 3,500 sqft of the Kala Ghoda parking lot - which is otherwise a repository for the cars which are the reasons for a super-congested Mumbai. By taking up all that space, it allows many people to sleep peacefully below it (paintings of hundreds of people sleeping below). A fighter plane, so to say, fighting against all the congestion and stress...I like!:-) The David Sassoon Library is in the background.


The Samovar cafe at the Jehangir Art Gallery remains a fave hangout...more so for a relaxed lunch during the festival. The various stuffed Parathas (including a Gajar Halwa paratha with icecream!), jaljira and guava juice are must-haves. A view of the Prince of Wales museum from Samovar.

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) stall just before closing time (otherwise the crowds there had to be seen to be believed!). I just love how WSD has designed its products and done an amazingly well excercise in branding. The girls hanging on to their boyfriends and the kids hanging on to their parents go 'awwwwww chooo chweeeet' or 'can I have that pillow, please please please, mummy, you know how much I LOVE dogs' - and that translates into great sales for us:-) And its great to see how many people LOVE dogs and happily buy stuff or donate or sign up to be volunteers!

Wheeeeeee....this is how I'd like to spend most of my weekends:-)

So there ended the Kala Ghoda festival - I'm sorry I didnt attend some of the films or dances or other stuff..am sure it must have been super. FBP loves Kala Ghoda festival so much that she postponed her holiday trip to Kerala for it!!

In other news, one of the trainers at my gym has adopted this teeeeny little kitten off the streets and its my first true brush with cats at close quarters. This one's obviously very friendly and keeps perched in the gym watching everyone working out. And as would be very obvious, it has been named 'Dumbbell':-) I'll post a pic of her fighting with the gym mirror some time.

Update - managed to upload a short clip of Dastangoi to You tube: