The streets have stirred themselves awake,
the trees are dressed in flags and lights.
The air is filled with strains of song,
the dark horse rides the road tonight.

It’s the first day of the Kala Ghoda art and culture festival and you can almost reach out and grab a handful of the buzz in the air, the change is that tangible. Traffic noises are replaced by human voices yelling, laughing, talking, pavements are playing easels and this area that is usually filled with people going about their business, is now filled with artists, actors, musicians, dancers and the audience trying frantically to drink it all in.

I first visited the Kala Ghoda festival two years ago and it was love at first sight. From the huge free-for-all-as-long-as-you-paint-something-related-to-horses canvas (on which I painted a nifty little sea-horse, thank you very much!), to the plays being performed in Horniman circle. From the food stalls where I sampled the most delicious kebabs I have ever eaten, to Daksha Seth’s dance troupe which brought that small wooden stage to life. Absolute, unabashed, love, is what I fell head-over-heels into.

I missed the whole festival last year but vowed, as God and broadband were my witnesses, that come February 2007 and I would attend every single day of it.

So here I am, on day one, prowling through the precinct like some culture starved creature.

I arrive fairly early in the morning, while the stalls are still being constructed and the installations put together. The crowds haven’t trickled in yet so it is relatively quiet and I can still walk around without bumping into people (dodging approaching juggernauts of workmen bearing stage props is still on though).

I walk slowly, stopping at each stall - antique furniture, pottery from Thailand, bronze artifacts, iron figurines from Bastar - and all the while I’m taking mental notes of which ones I’m definitely going to return to (although that doesn’t help much since I’ve ticked almost all of them).

I run off to attend the writing workshop I had signed up for and by the time I get back, the landscape has changed again. Where there was an empty parking lot, there is now a white fiberglass (I think) model of an airplane mounted on a platform of painted canvases. The tree on the corner has sprouted lips (yes really! lips!) and perched up on a platform is a small horse made of recycled material.

And that is what I love most about this festival - there’s always something new just around the corner.

Update: The little white airplane (I’m told by a reliable source) is actually a model of a Mirage 2000 and is made of wood and metal and covered with khadi and not (as I’d previously assumed) fiberglass.