EDITORIAL: Colours and Tastes of India

THE LIGHT OF ANDAMANS | VOL 36 | ISSUE 01 | 01 OCT 2012

EDITORIAL

Colours and Tastes of India

The initiative of the Dept of Culture and Dept of Tourism by packaging the food festival with Maati Ke Rang, organized by East Zone Culture Centre (EZCC) is laudable and noteworthy.

Far far away from the filmy music, karaoke by orchestras and record dances, it was a fresh whiff of air to witness musical ensembles from the North-east presenting songs, music, dance and other performing and non-performing art forms.

The magnificent stage made with eco-friendly materials and decorated with various art forms was a new experiment and excitement for the Islanders. A massive troupe with technical crew had flown from mainland to present the flamboyant show for the Islanders.

Theatrical smoke and fog with orchestrated kinetic lighting enthralled the audience with professional sound effects. The event has provided a learning experience for the authorities, local cultural organizations and artistes.

The Islands need to focus on the native folk arts forms instead of film music which has become a part and parcel of every event, including marriage and funerals. Nowadays, in Pooja seasons, blaring vulgar film music accompanies even the diety, which has become a widely accepted practice. Cultural organizations with support from Dept of Culture need to pitch in and seriously contemplate about promotion of alternative cultural forms.

The Food Festival is another remarkable event which gained huge acceptance since its inception last year. Various communities have put up stalls serving delicious menus from across the country. Nicobari cuisine, this year too is attracting huge crowd.

To make such event more popular and accesible, the Admn can think about announcing two-days holiday, so that school children and other office-goers too can visit such jamboree.

The Island Tourism Festival is the next mega-event, Islanders eagerly wait for. As a whole the ITF needs to be packaged more attractively for the entertainment starved people of the Islands.  There is a lesson to be learnt from our mainland folks how to organise such festivals without the dry and wry APWD plans and designs.

Instead of showcasing the performance or non performance of the government departments over the years and their future plans, the thrust should be on the art and culture content. Otherwise, there will be hardly anything to justify the very title of the festival; Island Tourism.