Kala Ghoda Festival 09

This is really bad practice & now with me blogging regularly, it shouldn't happen again. The reason for this explanation is that I'm about to post on the Kala Ghoda festival 09 which happened in Feb, now in April(!). Tsk, tsk,tsk. But my logic is: better later than never & what's the point of sitting on these pics now that I've shot them. "You couldn't post it earier, Vineeta? Doesn't matter, post it now." To get on with the post, Kala Ghoda is Bombay's cultural and art festival that the people love. Its hugely popular which people across the city make it a point to come to, braving Bombay's traffic & super hectic lifestyle ( this city probably heads the list of the most hard working cities in the world- working 24x7 - thats us) So like I'd mentioned in my last years Kala Ghoda post, this is the festival that makes people find the time to stop and smell the roses. Here's some colour and some freeze frame moments from a very happening event in this city.

One of this years most enduring image of the KalaGhoda Festival has to be this "8th wonder of the world- Save water" installation art by the famous Brinda Chudasama Miller and Krsna Mehta.

It was interesting to see children & adult alike thrusting their face through the blue cut out in this inverted umbrella for a quick snap.

The whole joy of the festival is this kind of whimsical art, suspended...

...or otherwise. This was some sort of a red (hypothetically blood soaked) missile with white doves stuck dying in it. The festival happened after the terror attacks against Bombay & this theme was represented in various ways. The cutting chai- surfaces here as an installation

This picture doesn't do it justice, it was taken on day 3 where this was just stacked to one side. On day 1 I had seen it with its technicolour glasses filled with chai & arranged interestingly, but it was evening & light was fading.

This art installation was called "windows" and the idea was to create a glass wall with these bottles and referred to our need to 'see' a lot always. (the explanation to my mind was a little convoluted, but hey, it looks interesting)And how can the unbiquitous god of Bombay be left behind & so there was a 'Ganesha' quirkily created using metal hardware of all sorts.

The place was made colourful with strategically placed hand-painted cartons

This was a clock of sorts for children

Here we see people checking out the 'baiscope' which showed a montage of Bombay

There were stalls galore selling evrything from "rangoli' moulds

to kurtas ( i just can't associate the average bombayite wearing these)

to beaded and birded curtains

to colourful woven baskets

to Indian handpainted art

but one of the reasons I decided to make this post is this: there was this whole section called "Postcards to Pakistan". And in the wake of the terror attacks that happened in the Taj & oberoi, in mumbai, this was a surefire sampler of public sentiment.

I have uploaded decent sized pictures here, do click on it to read these postcards that range from the friendly, to the voice-of-reason, to the warning to the really angry messages.

And some of these are really funny, I suggest u click on the images to really read all of it :)