LILLE (NORTHERN FRANCE): "Bombaysers de Lille" a gigantic three-month-long cultural festival featuring Indian art, cinema, theatre, dance, music and literature kicks off here on Saturday with a colourful parade featuring some 1,500 Lille residents dressed up in Indian costume.

The city has already taken on Indian colours with the central station illuminated to look like the maharajah's palace in Mysore, while twelve enormous elephants created by Bollywood's ace designer Nitin Desai interspersed with six-foot-high lamp holders or `Deepa stambha' line the Rue Faidherbe, the main street leading from the station to the city's impressive 18th century opera house.

The title of the 7.5 million-euro festival, which is specifically dedicated to Mumbai with Suketa Mehta's biography of the megalopolis featuring high on the billboards and posters, is a play on words signifying "Bombay kisses from Lille."

Cultural budget

"We began working on this project two years ago. I went to India, a country that I did not know with an entirely open mind. I was fascinated by the sheer energy of Bombay and realised that the city had to become the focal point of this festival. One of our first contacts was Bollywood's Rahul Vohra, who very quickly led us to Nitin Desai. This ramble of richly decorated elephants that lines the main street was his idea. This is a huge and complex operation. Most of the money comes from the city's cultural budget but we have several sponsors as well. There will be 50 exhibitions, 300 performances of all kinds, 500 film projections, and cultural events of every colour and stripe," Didier Fusselier, Director of Lille, 3000 told The Hindu.

Mumbai, he said, had a unique personality. ``That yellow light that strikes you at the airport, the frenzy of the place, the often shocking contrasts between the rich and the miserable — all that act like a slap in the face. It is this unique mix that we have tried to capture."

"I was in Mumbai during the July bomb blasts. I was astounded by the Mumbaite's capacity to take things into into his or her own hands, not wait for official help. As Suketa Mehta says, `we adjust.' That is the spirit we have tried to capture."

The Tri Postal or the central sorting office of the postal services has been turned into a massive exhibition-cum-sales area.

Subodh Gupta's enormous sculpture on the Tsunami entitled `The Hungry God,' a soldering together of quantities of stainless steel vessels, depicts ordinary, middle-class lives carried off by an avenging tide.

Another installation has dozens of television screens showing close up videos of handloom workers, the incessant click and clack of their looms making an almost unbearable musical din. On three floors the Tri Postal features a rickshaw, a Mumbai black and yellow taxi, countless posters and paintings.

"This has been a unique experience for the inhabitants of the city. Imagine 1,400 persons learning Indian dance steps in order to be perfect for the parade. We have also tried to establish neighbourhood solidarity by electing local "heroes," who will feature as Maharajas or princesses during the parade. Indian VJs will convert the Tri Postal into a huge dance floor, where residents and visitors will be able to swing to Indi pop. It is important that culture remains in touch with our times. We have definitely tried to remove the elitist label from culture and make it more accessible," Didier Fusilier said.

In the cinema section, both Bollywood and alternative cinema — Ritwick Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Ramesh Sippy, Guru Dutt, Karan Johar — have an equal presence. The film section will also show a retrospective of Anand Patwardhan's films, many of which have had restricted screenings in India.

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