A celebration of Nawabi culture that will bring a different facet of Lucknow to the masses, the seventh Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival has commenced from February 6 and will be held till February 10.
The inauguration of the festival, which was held on February 5, is a blend of weaves and crafts, cultural evenings, ‘QissaGoi’, and Awadhi home cooked food festival. Cinema, heritage walks and literary Guftugu’ (interactions) will also be a part of this annual festival.
This year’s theme is “Lucknow ki Rachi Basi Tehzeeb”, which is chosen every year and is in relevance to the cultural and historical side of Lucknow.
The Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival is a tribute to the late Indira Mahindra, mother of Anand, Radhika and Anuja Mahindra, whose connection to Lucknow was strong and sentimental. The Mahindra Group, focuses on enabling people to rise through solutions that power mobility, drive rural prosperity, enhance urban lifestyles and increase business efficiency.
The heart and soul of the festival each year is the crafts and weaves bazaar, which will again showcase handicrafts from different states of India. Stalls will feature exquisite saris, fabric, readymade garments, durrees, dupattas, jewellery, and handicrafts. This year’s bazaar will bring groups like Weavers Studio saris and fabrics and ‘Kanak Art’ silver jewellery from West Bengal, ‘Rangsutra’ from New Delhi, Abdul Ibrahim Khatri from Gujarat, ‘Malkha’ with purest organic cotton from Andhra Pradesh, breeze with phoolpatti from Aligarh, ‘Bhairavi’ and serenity with chikankari amongst others.
Some of the key features of the festival will be ‘Expressions of Muharram’ (poetry session); The Violin Brothers from Kolkata; Sahar: a concert at dawn; ‘Dastaan Goopi Bagha’ (adaptation of Satyajit Ray’s famous film Goopi gayan Bagha Bayan); ‘Akshayambara’- a Kannada play by Drammon; Marathi Natya Sangeet: Classical songs from Marathi dramas; ‘A Literary Panel’-a new Lecture Series by keynote speaker Shamsur Rehman Faruqi, an eminent writer on Rachi Basi Tehzeeb; and many more, will enthrall the visitors.
An exhibition presenting the story of the city’s regional communities and their mohalla’s through both black and white and colour lens will also be a part of the festival. A cookbook- The Classic Cuisine of Lucknow, written by Mirza Jafar Hussain and translated by Sufia Kidwai will also be launched.