Mehrauli to Metro: Walk festival to explore Delhi
HERITAGE Celebrities, authors and artists will take participants on a tour of the Capital
NEWDELHI: With a hope to generating curiosity for the lesser known and appreciation for the unfamiliar, the Delhi Walk Festival (DWF) is offering 170 walks this year, an opportunity to explore the national capital on foot.
The 11-day event, starting November 2, will cover various parts of the city including three major historical sites — the Mughal-era city of Shajahanabad, Mehrauli, and Nizamuddin.
The walks will be led by celebrity authors, historians, filmmakers, architects, ecologists, anthropologists, musicians, and other renowned persons from various fields.
The third edition of DWF promises to be bigger and better, with more walk leaders, fresh concepts, and more areas to discover the city, the organiser said.
“The DWF is obviously about walking. Walk to discover, to get lost, to learn, to unlearn, to know your city better. But mostly walk to find yourself through these myriad frameworks of urban existence,” said Aastha Chauhan, festival director.
“We are looking forward to taking this festival to other cities. Bangalore, Mumbai, and Jodhpur are on the cards,” she said.
Some celebrities who are expected to take participants on a journey to explore the city are Aruna Roy (social activist), Shashi Tharoor (politician), Vinod Dua (journalist),william Dalrymple (historian), Iqbal Ahmad Khan (Delhi Gharana), Ram Rehman (photographer), Vikram Soni (physicist), Gautam Bhan (urbanist), Shahzi Zaman (novelist), MK Raina (director), Samar Jodha (artist), Joe Baath (Master Chef),
Other organisations and individuals who will lead the walks in the latest edition of the festival are Sohail Hashmi, Sadia Dehlvi, Delhi Karavan, Aanchal Malhotra, Bombay Natural History Society, Darwesh, Baldev Gulati, Madhav Raman, Street Art Foundation, Delhi Food Walks, Delhi Bird Foundation and Sair-e-nizamuddin and Seek Sherpa among others.
Last year, around 2700 people participated in the festival.