On its 46th edition of the Ekamra Walks on October 29, 10 visitors from France and one from the USA took part, besides the locals. It was a strong contingent of 90 heritage lovers on the pursuit to discover the old monuments.
However, the other highlight of the event was the girl power as evident from the number of participants. Out of walkers more than 60 were girls and the major chunk was from city-based ICICI Academy of Skills. The students of this institute have majorly contributed to the weekly heritage walks, besides other city-based, national and international institutes.
Sylvie Favarque, part of the French delegation, said that she found the tour extremely educative. Francois Bouqueniaux, also part of the heritage walkers’ team from the European nation, said, “We feel very happy to know the ancient temple architecture and also the social and cultural traditions of the Old City of Bhubaneswar.’’
Gloria Sclar, a research scholar from Emory University in the USA, who is working on the sanitation issues in rural Odisha, came to the walk with her friend from london School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Parimita Routray. Parimita, a native of Bhubaneswar in the past, introduced several of her foreign friends to the Ekamra Walks. Gloria said, “I had been to Odisha in the past four or five times, but never joined the heritage walk. I found the Ekamra Walks an extremely engaging platform to let the visitors know and discover about the rich heritage treasure of this State Capital as it is also known as the Temple City of India.’’
Sanjay Rawat, manager (Quality) of the light Combat Aircraft Division at the Bangalore facility of Hindustan Aeronautics limited, came to the walks with a friend. Originally from Uttarkashi region in Uttarakhand, Sanjay was very happy to be part of the heritage walk. However, he hoped that the Odisha Government must do more to popularize the sites.
last week, while participating in the Ekamra Walks, Mayor of Cupertino City in the USA Savita Vaidhyanathan also appreciated the girls for participating in the heritage walk. While talking to some of the participants, especially from ICICI Academy of Skills, she had asked them to be quick learners of soft skills, but to have a dashing personality and abilities to carry oneself well to win over difficulties and challenges in life.