For the core team, the biggest driving factor was that most people their age didn’t know what Warli, Kalamkari or Madhubani were.
While their classmates enjoyed Diwali vacations, Priya Adivarekar, Prita Kalyan Sundaram, Rumela Basu, Divya Das, Charlene Dunne and Madhuri Dhariwal from Sophia College were glued to Skype planning a new intra-college festival focusing on folk art forms — Jalsa.
“It’s our final year and we wanted to promote folk art, music and theatre because there is hardly any awareness about them,” said Adivarekar, vice-cultural secretary of the college. Jalsa is on until Friday at Sophia College.
For the core team, the biggest driving factor was that most people their age didn’t know what Warli, Kalamkari or Madhubani were.
“Living in a country that boasts of a rich folk culture, it is unfortunate that there’s no awareness about the many art forms. That’s why we needed a folk art-centric festival,” explained Basu, a core team member.
To create awareness, the core committee decided to focus on workshops. “One may have heard about Madhubani, but how does one know what it is all about? The workshops will ensure that people get to know more about these art forms,” said Dhariwal.
The team found it difficult to find the right people to conduct the workshops, but through local networks, they managed to rope in four folk artists. But their biggest challenge was getting sponsors.
Having approached close to 70 companies, the girls learnt that with a small festival that focuses on something as niche as folk art, the going can get quite tough. “An amount as small as Rs7,000 was almost impossible to get. It just shows how folk art is something that people do not want to get associated with,” said Das.
Not the ones to be forced to invite Bollywood celebrities, the team went ahead with aggressive promotion through the college PA system and word-of-mouth.
“One hour before the first workshop, we had two registrations. But, it caught on and now, all the workshops are overbooked,” said an elated Sundaram.
As they graduate next year, the core team members hope that they have taken a small yet significant step in creating an interest in folk art. “We hope some day Jalsa becomes the Kaleidoscope of folk art,” said Dhariwal.
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