The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai gears up for mega city festival

Mr Anand Mahindra, Vice-Chairman & Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, flanked by Ms Sangita Jindal, JSW Foundation, and Col. Sudhir Sawant, MLC, Convenor of the Festival Committee, at a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday to announce the Mumbai festival to be held in the city from January 7 to 16. — Paul Noronha

Mumbai , Nov. 24

THE city will host `The Mumbai Festival' from January 7-16, 2005. Mr Anand Mahindra, Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M) and Chairperson of the festival committee, said: "It will be positioned as the most spirited festival and the most participative of its kind."

Billed as an annual event, the festival's long-term goals include putting Mumbai on the international festivals map with a million tourist arrivals hoped for by 2010.

"It will be about the joy of being in the city at that time," said Mr Sudhir Sawant, Convenor.

The festival will be publicised abroad. Its dates coincide with the scheduled Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas programmes, and is therefore likely to see considerable NRI interest.

A number of eminent persons from different fields have come together to make the festival a success.

Programmes span nine categories - art & heritage, children, craft, entertainment, film, food, music, shopping and sport.

Each of these `verticals' has been taken up for implementation by an organisation or individual devoted to the space.

Thus, the art & heritage section, the highlight of which would be a 60-ft Wish Wall painted by the city's noted artists, is being presented by Ms Sangita Jindal and supported by the JSW Foundation.

India Book House has assumed responsibility for the children's section, while the craft section will be presented by Mr Siddharth Kak and supported by the Surabhi Force.

The city's restaurants, bars, pubs, lounges and discotheques will collectively contribute to efforts in the entertainment category, while films would be represented by the city's annual international film festival organised by the Mumbai Association of Moving Images.

The food section, presented by Ms Rashmi Uday Singh, will cater to both the gourmet and the street food patron with lucky draws at more than 800 outlets.

The music segment has two basic slots - the first a search to find Mumbai's best college band (the winner may get to play with an international act) and the second, performances at the Gateway of India by artistes like Louis Banks, Suresh Wadkar, Daksha Seth and her troupe, and Ruhaniyat.

The high point in the category will be a performance at the festival's closing ceremony by jazz veterans Al Jarreau, Earl Klugh, George Duke and Ravi Coltrane along with the 30-member T Monk Institute of Jazz band.

The festival's theme song is being composed by singer Shankar Mahadevan and his colleagues.

Sport will be represented by the Mumbai International Marathon, included this time as part of the festival's closing day events.

Regular categories aside, some unique niches have also been opened up, among them an arm-wrestling competition and an autorickshaw race most probably in that part of town where these 3-wheelers normally don't ply.

A city festival is nothing without the shopping leg, so 5,000 outlets are to be roped in for what is billed as the largest shopping festival Mumbai has seen.

There will be daily lucky draws culminating in a grand draw at festival's close.

"If there isn't going to be a commercial benefit or an economic multiplier, Mumbai may be reluctant to rock. Hopefully, in a few years, Dubai should feel the heat," said one of the organisers.

Notwithstanding the promised tag of being all-inclusive, theatre, so strongly identified with Mumbai, was missing in the festival's verticals. Mr Mahindra said that the organisers had gone ahead with those fields where responsibility for implementation had been forthcoming. "Theatre will be looked into next time."