When India met the world
The 11th edition of Delhi International Arts Festival (DIAF) kicked off with the opening ceremony on Saturday. Braving the smoggy weather, Capital’s art afficionados enjoyed a performance by Indian classical dancers on the song Vande Mataram along with performances from countries such as Russia and Egypt.
Amelting pot of talent across the world is the 11th edition of Delhi International Arts Festival. Taking inspiration from the concept of Vasudeva Kutumbakam (The world is one family), the festival, hosted by Forum for Art beyond Borders and Prasiddha Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Delhi government, has performances by 1500 artists from 26 countries till November 25 in Delhi. From an array of Asian films, Indian classical music performances by Rajat Prasanna, Zuber Niyazi, a puppet dance from Indonesia, poetry recitals, theatre and even a children’s film festival, there’s a lot to explore at this fest.
“Through this festival, we want to draw the world’s attention to India’s soft power. The idea is to project the image of the festival as the meeting place of ideas and artists, cultural conditioners, thinkers and writers,” says Pratibha Prahlad, founder and festival director, DIAF.
For the literary enthusiasts, the segment, Words Count: Festival of Words, will see a power-packed line-up of authors such as Amish Tripathi , Manmohan Vaidya, Pavan Varma, Karthika VK , Subramanian Swamy and Frederic Beigbeder. “Words is something, we all use. It’d be interesting to get different people from all walks of life, [with] ideological persuasions, and political persuasions. There is a session, War Stories and one with male parliamentarians, on Women’s Reservation bill.”
The closing ceremony will mark the celebration of silver jubilee of Asean-India partnership at Qutub Minar with performances by artists from Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines.