BHOPAL: “I am Dhirubhai Ambani”, declares the demure 12-year-old, dressed smartly in a bandhgala, before going on to describe in first person the can-do spirit of the legendary Gujarat businessman’s well-known rags-to-riches story. In another corner stands Mahatma Gandhi, impeccably dressed in the Mahatma’s trademark dhoti, lathi in hand. He goes on to relate the life of the Mahatma; where he was born, what he did and how he was killed. Yet another young boy, who is “Gujarat”, reels out facts and figures about the western state of India, including its population, area, sex ratio and places of interest down to the minutest detail.
Welcome to the ‘Laghu Bharat’ (Mini India) section of the three-day Balrang Festival, presently underway on the sprawling premises of the IGRMS.
There is a long row of tents, each carrying the name of a state and that of the school given the responsibility of presenting the state’s history, geography, culture, art, cuisine and lifestyle.
All the stalls have been put by the government higher secondary schools – mostly of the city with a fair sprinkling of those from other areas of the district.
The hard work that has gone into the making of the exhibition is evident – and so is innovation. Thus, the Uttar Pradesh booth has a Rani of Jhansi, holding a sword in hand and a model of the Taj; the one on Bengal has a fishing pond complete with fishes and a net to depict the important place of seafood in both the economy and the cuisine of that state. And very thoughtfully; all the names and labels are written in Bangla as well.
If there is chokha-litti in the Bihar stall; there is Tunda Kebab in the Uttar Pradesh one. In the Haryana stall, two hefty young boys are wrestling with each other in a small area lined with bricks and covered with sand. “Dangal”, explains a note hanging by a pole alongside. In the Uttarakhand stall, a yagna is being performed while in the Kerala one, even the teachers are dressed as typical Malayali women – in white and off-white saris with golden borders.
Each stall also has a band of dancers, presenting the folk dances of the states concerned. The Bihar stall has little girls, dressed as married women, performing the Chhath Puja while young boys in traditional tribal attire, spears in hand, guard the Sikkim stall. The Meghalaya stall explains that the word means ‘abode of the clouds’ and also why it is called so – it receives the highest average rainfall among all states of India.
“The idea is to expose the local children to the culture of other states as also to tell the school kids who have come from all over India that we understand and appreciate their culture”, explains a teacher manning one of the stalls.
The most interesting was the Punjab stall, where Makke de Roti and Sarson da Saag was being cooked on a clay chullah. And outside the Rajasthan, stall stood a camel, with a student dressed as a BSF soldier, mounted on it.
“Hatiye, hatiye, mantriji aa rahe hain”, says an over-zealous organiser as the Minister of state for school education Vijay Shah enters the premises and breezes through the stalls.
