Boat race lays out cultural feast

HYDERABAD: The second day of Keralotsav began with a trial boat race in the Hussainsagar lake on Friday. After the trial boating, four boats each with 45 oarsmen raced for about 3.5 km from Sanjeevaiah Park to IMAX theatre.
A ceremonial procession of caparisoned elephants with traditional music followed as a signature tune to the cultural events. Various traditional cultural programmes including Thiruvathirakali by Kerala Kalavedi, Kolkali by Khaleel Ponnani and party, Kaniyarkali by Dwaraka Krishnan and group, Ashtapathy and Koodiyattam by Natanakairali, Kummatty by A R Surendran, Oppana by Sadanam Rasheed and troupe, Kathakali by Kalamandalam Sivarajan and Padayani by Prof Kadammanita Vasudevan were held.
Adding to the cultural feast, the Kerala cuisine at one of the stalls with delicacies, including payasam, steam cake or puttu and tapioca curry, left the Malayalees from the twin cities contended. At the stall, a live demonstration of preparing steam cake was also being explained by a stall member.
Responding to the report about the lack of drinking water facilities at the venue, Keralotsav stalls chairman J George Komathapally said the complaints by some visitors were baseless as 12 drums of water from the MCH were kept at the stall premises. As regards the exhibition of Kerala model articles, the visitors had their complaints and suggestions as well.
"The exhibition is more like an Andhra or Bengalee one, no Kerala handlooms or handicrafts displayed at the stalls," C P K Menon and Raji Menon said. They also suggested that the venue could do better by promoting Kerala handlooms and handicrafts. The Keralotsav organisers said Kerala Tourism had promised to put up stalls with Kerala handlooms but that did not work out.
As the stage set for the cultural programmes collapsed due to the winds, a temporary make-shift arrangement was made for holding the cultural programmes on Friday. The repair of the stage is on and once that is completed the programmes will be held there, Keralotsav coordinator Ajit Nair said.
Ramoorthy P Decorated elephants and traditional music bring alive the magic of Kerala at the ongoing Keralotsav 2003 festival in the city.