Bhuj (Gujarat), Dec 2 (Inditop.com) Eight years after the northern coast of Gujarat was ravaged by a major earthquake, the colourful Kutch region in western India put the past behind to showcase its ancient cultural heritage and folk traditions at Rannotsav festival.
The venue was a stretch of ground overlooking the Hamirsar Lake in Bhuj town, 400 km from principal city Ahmedabad. Lit by a full moon and studded with illuminated boats, it was a riot of colour and music.
The mega cultural carnival, being held from Dec 1-3, was inaugurated by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who pitched his state – known as an industrial hub – as a cultural, sports, leisure and spiritual destination to “grab a large slice of the global tourism pie”.
“The world spends $7 trillion on tourism every year and I want a large chunk of the international tourism dollars to come to the state and to India,” Modi told a gathering of 5,000 people on the shores of the historical Hamirsar Lake, also a migratory bird sanctuary, in the heart of Bhuj town.
It was barely 20 km from Bhuj town, in Lonia village, that a high intensity earthquake had originated Jan 26, 2001, killing thousands and razing the area to the ground.
“I want to change the curse of the Kutch – the Rann and its fickle earth and the state’s 16,000-km coastline – once considered the biggest threat to the state – into a tourism heaven. The coast is already the gateway to India handling a bulk of the country’s maritime business,” said Modi.
The festival opened with an hourlong cultural show which walked the crowd through the colourful history of Kutch and of Gujarat through an array of folk dances from the regions, tableaux showcasing the demography, terrain, lifestyles and social evolution of the region.
The dancers wore traditional Kutchi attires with mirror and applique work and dense embroidery in bright shades of red, blue, green, yellow and white – which according to local residents represented the colours of Lord Krishna.
“Gujarat is the cradle of civilisation. Dholavira was the place that gave the country its first town and taught the ancient Indians urban planning. The state is dotted with Harappan sites and Gujarat has the highest number of heritage buildings per square kilometre,” he said.
“We want to take it to the world. People come to Delhi and go to Agra, but no one knows about the treasures of Gujarat.”
Dhordo, the last Indian village in Kutch region, 100 km from the Pakistan border, is also another venue of the festival. The area is known for its white sand beaches or the White Rann that draws 300,000 Siberian flamingoes every year and the excavated ruins of the Harappan civilisation of Dholavira.
