AAW #129

The 129^th edition of Ahmedabad Art Weekly is here to take you one a creative excursion. In times when the local audience is consuming only popular medium of creative content, Ahmedabad Art Weekly will help you in realising, what inventive stuff is being churned out by the creators everyday around you. It has happened that during and around Diwali, Amdavadis get in a laid-back mood concerning organising events. But this year, the creativity has amplified and so has their enthusiasm in providing citizens with an optimum enriching experience. This week we bring you a list of happenings that are offering you experiences full of art, literature, films, photography, theatricals, music, culinary art, performing arts, and storytelling.

On the 148^th birth anniversary of our father of the nation, let us get inspired by knowing the life of his close associate, Mahadev Desai through our 129^th edition of AAW. Referred as Ananda to Gandhi’s Buddha and also his Boswell the independence writer was personal secretary of Mahatma Gandhi. Born in the Surat district of Gujarat, Desai completed his BA Degree and studied law before taking up a job at a co-operative bank in Bombay. He has written in Gujarati, English and Bengali and is known for his translations and biographies. Desai in his life time has authored biographies of a diverse oeuvre of personalities like Sant Francis, Vir Vallabhbhai and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan. His translations include important effort of translating Saratchandra Chattopadhyaya’s work Virajvahu, Rabindranath Tagore’s Bengali poems in Gujarati and Jawaharlal Nehru’s English Autobiography into Gujarati. The English translation of Bapu’s autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth is a result of his endeavour. Deasi was a regular contributor to Bapu’s publications Young India, Navjivan and the Harijan bandhu. The Indian Department of Posts has recognised the Gandhian by printing a memorial stamp in 1983. Founded by Gandhiji,  Gujarat Vidyapith’s faculty of social sciences, arts and humanities department is named after him.

Illustration : Nilesh Ramani