Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXVI No. 19, January 16-31, 2017
That festive air in Mylapore
(By A Staff Reporter)
V. Mythili slowly got up from the edge of tarred North Mada Street, leaned on her maid, dragged herself a few steps and found a place on the pavement to sit down. And both smiled.
Mythili had accomplished what she had set out from Villivakkam to do – design a kolam at the annual contest of the Sundaram Finance Myla-pore Festival.
“My folks discouraged me. You are old now, they said. But I wanted to come here,” said Mythili who looked 80 years-plus.
Seen at the Mylapore Festival: Kolam on the street
Her spirit is what makes the annual Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival, curated by Vincent D’Souza of Mylapore Times, unique year on year.
A community-driven cultural festival that is special to the city, this year’s was the Festival’s 15th edition and it featured over 200 artistes in some 40 events. As T.T. Srinivasaraghavan, MD of Sundaram Finance, says, “This festival is of the community. We don’t have celebrities around nor VIPs on stage.”
The carpet of kolam-s, the outcome on North Mada Street on two evenings of contests (picture above) is the flagship event that triggered this festival idea over 15 years ago.
Vikku Vinayakram and his students at a concert in Nageswara Rao Park
But other facets of this street festival have been blooming too. Take the Heritage Walks. Over 350 people took part in the six Walks hosted this year.
And cyclone Vardah did not discourage the hosts of the Festival. Nageswara Rao Park was in tatters, but a day after the ravage, Sundaram Finance, which maintains this popular park in Luz, brought in teams from Kodaikanal to clear the park of fallen trees and dead branches. And on all four mornings of the Festival, the ‘mike-less’ concerts launched the events of the day – imagine the world-famous percussion maestro Vikku Vinayakram accompanying kid-students at the opening morning’s concert!.
Architect Kavitha Selva-raj got the space opposite Amrutanjan’s cleaned up and had Kreeda host a session of traditional games that Festival weekend. Now, this space is set to have a life of its own.
As non-resident Mylapo-reans and Mylaporeans might have started a debate: Can we make the Mada Streets a ‘car-free’ zone? The Festival is not just a four-day cultural mela. It raises issues on public space use, community relationships and on heritage conservation.
(Pictures by Mylapore Times)
