So the black horse races around the Islands again. The one big problem with the Kala Ghoda Art Festival is the fact that it is held where it is, right at the other end of town. I suppose that’s most easily (or at least equally) accessible for everyone in Mumbai and besides if they didn’t have it at Kala Ghoda, what would they call it? The ‘All over Mumbai’ festival doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it? :-)

I was at Kala Ghoda on the 5th February. The event I was looking for was Rural Rhythms, to be performed by a group of young dancers under the tutelage of Ms.Rajee Narayanan. They were performing a series of rope-dance sequences. Each girl had a pair of wooden sticks, from one of which was attached a long coloured rope. The other ends of all the ropes were fastened to a metal ring hovering over the stage.

I entered as one dance was in progress, the girls clacking their sticks together and weaving smoothly in and out of circles around each other. As we watched, the coloured ropes wove together in a symmetric design, all done, as the commentator pointed out, without looking up or missing a beat in the dance. And when the rope weaving was complete, the music stopped for a minute for the audience to admire the girls’ handiwork. Then they began again, this time in a different set of steps, to a different pulse and un-weaving the ropes. When they finished, every coloured rope hung individually as it had when they began, no knots, tangles or twists visible. Just perfectly synchronized to come apart in time to the end of the song.

The group performed 3 sequences, each one peaking with a different design of weave on the ropes and ending, as always with the girls impeccably in place and the ropes hanging gracefully separate. My camera-phone proved to be woefully inadequate in capturing some stills of the dance but I did manage a few shots of the girls after the dance was over.

I have been rather disappointed with the festival in the past couple of years…last year was more like an ‘Expo’ sale than a real festival of culture. It’s a precious enough time in a city that runs on clockwork precision number-like efficiency to spot colour, music, dance, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and generally anything that qualifies as art here. I was starting to miss it and wonder if KGAF had succumbed to the hard reality of mundane Mumbai too.

I’m so glad to say it hasn’t. The festival this year is remarkably back in shape. I’ve only managed one visit and 1.5 events but I know its back…you can virtually smell the spirit of the festival in the air again! At the entrance to the triangle, you are greeted by a huge lemon-and-green chillis (sculpture?effigy?stuffed something?). Right next to it is a glass case full of smaller replicas of the city’s most famous good luck charm.

Furthur up ahead is an ‘auto-copter’. Based on the fantasy of a person who got caught in Mumbai’s traffic and wished he could just lift up in the autorickshaw and fly away. Ah….wouldn’t we all wish that?

To the right, you spot a large, sparkling white model of a plane. What strikes you is…how very WHITE it is. Shining in the backdrop of the night sky, this is mounted on a base that on closer inspection, has some portraits barely visible but come to light, once you notice them. They’re all faces of people, virtually indistinguishable by gender or age. But they all look asleep…in a disturbed sleep. Does that signify the onslaught of war, terror and violence on all of as we ‘blissfully slumber’..or perhaps not? Maybe. That’s how I read it.

Art outside the galleries and out on the roads. Art for someone who can’t name the greats of art history. Art for those who appreciate beauty and music and ideas, simply for themselves. Art of all of us. I’m so glad the Kala Ghoda Art Festival is back in form.