Virasat cultural festival of Dehradun started on Sunday at the Virasat Village erected at B R Ambedkar Stadium of ONGC at Kaulagarh. On Sunday morning the citizens of Dehradun participated in the Khalanga heritage walk conducted in the memory of the Gurkha fighters involved in the battle.
The walk started from Gillespie’s Memorial which is situated at Shastradhara Road. The walk was conducted to commemorate the 200 years of the battle which the Gurkhas fought against the British to retain their occupation of what is now Uttarakhand. It was on November 29 in 1814 that the British entered the fort of Khalanga and cut off the water supply at Sagar Tal in order to defeat the Gurkhas. The walk had about 70 participants.
later in the evening the cultural festival was inaugurated by noted Santoor player Pandit Bhajan Sopori, RK Singh and AK Wahal from Reach Virasat, following which there was a transmission of the original recording of Swami Vivekananda’s address to the international community at the world religion conference at Chicago in 1893.
later, Gurans Sanskritic Kala Kendra Dehradun performed the Nepalese and Gurkhali dances.
