AAW #168

Take a Sacred Walk alongside the 141st Rath Yatra this weekend, in the Heritage Walled City. Adventure seekers can head out for a monsoon hike, while music-lovers can listen to Kabir Cafe. For sheer laughs, there’s the Comedy Factory Show.

Are you wondering what’s there to do in the coming days in Ahmedabad, besides enjoying the relief provided by spells of rain? You’ll be in for a surprise. This week began with a fantastic art exhibition by 19-year-old Jwalant who depicts nature only through abstract textures. The city is also host to one more art exhibition this week, called Imagining a Forest, which is being shown at the Conflictorium. It too has a focus on nature, with a view towards the relationship shared between the forest and this urbanising world.

Poetry enthusiasts can listen out for an evening of great rhymes shared by emerging poets of Ahmedabad. And fans of humour can watch the uncensored Comedy Factory Show this weekend. There’s always room for music, of course, and this weekend, the band Kabir Cafe is back in the city with their melodious Kabir Vaani.

Keen listeners seeking inspiration through words can head over for two talks. One is a discourse on entrepreneurship that’s being held to mark World Youth Skills day. The second is a talk called Ayurvastra that explores how Ayurvedic plants can form fashionable textiles.

Audiences looking forward to some monsoon adventures, meanwhile, should either go for the Monsoon Hideout hike with Diving Deep or join the crowd for a sacred walk alongside the 141st Rath Yatra. The Yatra begins in the original Heritage Walled City of Ahmedabad.

Asim Randeri, the famous Gujarati language ghazalkar and poet, is the inspiration for our 168th Ahmedabad Art Weekly. Randeri gave us a bold style of writing that revolutionised Gujarati ghazals. Born in Surat in 1904, Randeri began writing at the age of 18. The fictional character of Leela, in his work of the same name, was a favourite among young readers. Tapi Tirey, his collection of poems, talks about love blooming on the banks of River Tapi in the city of Surat. Randeri’s ghazals were made famous by singer Manhar Udhas. Having received so much love and affection from readers and listeners, ghazalkar Asim Randeri lived for 104 years, until February 2009.