AAW #117

The city’s only cultural portal celebrates the biggest instance in the history of Ahmedabad city. The time of July 8, 2017, 09:38 PM when Ahmedabad was declared as India’s first World Heritage City. The happiness is overwhelming amongst us, and we want to share it with each proud citizen of India through our 117th edition of Ahmedabad Art Weekly. The title will not only boost up the tourism industry in the state but will also help the citizens to be more empathetic towards the cultural value of the city, which CreativeYatra has been exhaustively working upon since more than two years now.

The Ahmedabad Art Weekly 117 is dedicated to Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla (September 22, 1875 – May 25, 1956), a Zoroastrian priest and religious scholar from Surat. Dhalla became popular due to his unconventional views on religious orthodoxy and his ideas of reinterpreting rituals. He was a prolific writer and has penned close to 30 titles during his lifetime, including his acclaimed autobiography Atma Katha. Most of his work is written in Gujarati and is directed to Parsi community. Maneckji is among the early alumni of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Madressa (now known as JJ Insititute). He studied Iranian Language and Sanskrit to augment his theological understanding. He is among the few who grasped the Avestan Language under the tutelage of famous scholar Sir AV Williams Jackson of Columbia University in New York. A scholar, an author, a priest and above all a thinker who didn’t shy away from reinterpretations, Maneckji Dhalla is a great source of inspiration in today’s time when conditioning is threatening creativity in a big way.

Illustration : Nilesh Ramani