Posts tagged Festivals

I’ve been in Bombay for over 5 years and have always heard of the magnificence of the Kala Ghodha Art festival, but never found the time and energy to go all the way downtown to catch it. This year, I decided to finally go see it. Giving up a nice relaxing Sunday nap, is a huge sacrifice as far as I’m concerned, so I was hoping that it’ll be worth all the effort.

Driving past the Kala Ghoda festival venue, looking for parking, the one thing that caught my eye was this huge mountain of colored buckets, stacked one upon the other, for a good 15-20 feet. I remember thinking, the buckets better be worth my Sunday nap…and boy was it!

A predominant theme of the festival was saving the environment. An enterprising artist had thought of the bucket pyramid in an effort to highlight the need to save water. Buckets, mugs, plastic taps, plastic bottles hung from the huge pyramid and I thought it was an interesting piece.

The festival also had all kinds of art forms up for display. As we walked past the pavements, artists from all over the world showcased their unique art. From paintings made of train and bus tickets, to exquisitely painted armoires/ boxes, (even an innovative bar chest!) painting on leaves, charcoal drawings, canvas paintings, the festival had everything.

Sculptures made of all kinds of mediums – wire, hay, meshes, clay, metal – were interesting and the thoughts behind making them a mystery for you to unravel. There was this sculpture made of wire meshing that looked like a rocket… and it had pigeons stuck in it all over. I’d like to think the piece was trying to portray the problem of the large pigeon population in Mumbai… something to say that a rocket cannot break through the skies of Mumbai without running into a flock of pigeons (okay I know that’s mean, but pigeons really bug me with their guttur guttur when I’m trying to have my aforementioned very precious Sunday afternoon nap!)

The organizers had put up a stage at the center and various artists were performing throughout the day. The one performance we saw was by a percussionist group called FAD. Not much of a fan of this kind of music, to me it really sounded just like synchronized noise making… but many others seem to have enjoyed it!

The festival had a lot to offer to all – Painting, Photography, Sculptures, Street Food, Music, book readings, workshops, street magic, puppet shows, heritage walks, shopping etc (check out their official website for all the details). We couldn’t do all the things, but the time we spent there was absolutely awesome!