A group of 2,500 artistes, who had never met before and practiced with the help of a common shared video, came together to enthrall the audience at the World Culture Festival 2016. By Arjita Mishra
We walked for almost half an hour and crossed the temporarily built pontoon bridge over the Yamuna. Making our way through the heavy crowd, we reached the venue of The Culture Festival. The grand stage attracted us and we were amazed with how beautifully it was designed. It was a humongous stage we had ever seen spread over seven acres of the Yamuna flood plains.
And only something as extravagant as a 2,500 member group, performing the bhangra could have justified the enormous size of the stage, and also the event. We could not help but talk to the artistes before they dazzled the stage.
And they were more excited to talk about it more than we wanted to know. Vaibhav, an artist from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, said, “Around 2,500 artistes will be performing at the same time. This is something which I haven’t seen, heard or done before.” He told us that all the participants in the belonged to different regions of the country and are not just limited to Punjab. “We received a video clip from the Art of living Foundation and learnt the steps from there. When we came here and met everyone, then we rehearsed for the performance together and it was an amazing experience,” added the dancer.
The three-day festival, hosted by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar saw the residents of not only Delhi and NCR but one forth of the crowd belongs from south India.
The event felt the presence of 155 countries and with the philosophy of ‘one world family’ or Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the event was organised to bring together people of talent, eminence and repute. It showcased the rich cultural traditions of music, dance and the arts from around the world along with Yoga and meditation, with a positive hope of building a good relationship and deeper understanding between people of different faiths, nationalities and backgrounds.
Just not the television and the print media, the gala event is also making quite some round of the social media. So much so that people from as many as 161 countries watched the live webcast of the World Culture Festival.
“(People from) 161 countries watched the live webcast... from over 100,000 unique locations (sic),” said Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in a tweet.
The event was organised at such a grand level that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed the World Culture Festival as an “art maha kumbh” and said India can fulfill needs of the world through its cultural heritage only if there is no constant internal criticism.
The spiritual leader, on the other hand, during his opening speech had said that thinking, arguing and debating will certainly lead to something meaningful, if it is done with the right intentions.
“Young leaders should not shy away from facing challenges as it is a sign of youthfulness and energy,” the spiritual guru said in one of the session of the World Culture Festival.
“Chaos is a blessing in disguise. A leader has a role to play when there is chaos. Since there is no dearth of chaos in the world, we need to create more leaders,” he added.
Narrating a story from ancient India about resolution of a small conflict in a village, he said that all conflicts can be resolved if there is a will to resolve them.
With inputs from IANS