Celebrating the 6th Heritage Festival of Pondicherry -2020

Now in its sixth year, the Pondicherry Heritage Festival continues to celebrate the character of this extraordinary town and its environs. Originally conceived to draw attention to conserve Pondicherry’s outstanding architectural legacy, the festival has expanded its scope to embrace other aspects of heritage. It is the interplay of its diverse built environment, an idyllic seaside natural setting, a rich spiritual and intellectual history, and fascinating combination of indigenous and imported cultural practices that gives Pondicherry its distinctive flavour.

The emphasis for this year’s festival will be on Pondicherry’s splendid natural heritage, and specifically its wetlands and
waterbodies. The natural heritage is as much at risk as built heritage, and often gets overlooked. This year the festival will
draw attention to the acute need to preserve and safeguard Pondicherry’s precious fresh water resources, as well as the
wetlands that are not only unique and beautiful ecosystems, but provide the key environmental buffer against drought and
flood.
Children’s events commenced this year in advance of the main body of the festival, with creative expression of heritage
through dance, poetry-writing, and other arts. The annual Pondicherry Heritage Quiz for teams of students from schools
throughout the city remains a festival highlight.
The main festival kicks-off with a very special theatrical event: Bharathi Yaar? portraying key events in the life of Mahakavi
Subramania Bharati using theatre, recitation, dance (folk & classical) and videography. The event showcases the richness of
the literature, poems and songs of Bharati and the events which inspired them.
As Pondicherry moves closer to obtaining status as a UNESCO world heritage city, the festival is delighted to host two
important conversations. In the first, we will learn about Ahmedabad’s UNESCO application from professors Saswat
Bandyopadhyay and Rabindra Vasavada; in the second, we will hear about the conservation experience in Chennai from Dr.
Arun Menon of IIT - Madras and a representative of Chennai’s PWD.
As always, the schedule will be brimming with music, dance, and the launch of a book on Pondicherry. Heritage buildings
will be open for public tours, special events will feature Pondy’s cuisine, cooking classes, a ‘food trail’ and the “Made in
Pondy” exhibition in the town's Crafts Bazaar will feature some of the finest products and beautiful handicrafts this region
produces. World Wetlands day, will be celebrated on 1st and 2nd Feb with a photography exhibition, a special session in
Ousteri and 2 cycle tours of waterbodies. The festival will also include the dedication of the garden of Joan of Arc, newly
restored by Friends of Pondicherry Heritage, as a place for peaceful meditation and celebration.
Since its start in 2015, the Pondicherry Heritage Festival has always been a volunteer effort, led by the People for
Pondicherry’s Heritage, INTACH and PondyCAN, with very valuable support from the Puducherry government’s Tourism
Department, the French Institute and the Alliance Francaise of Pondicherry as festival partners organising events or hosting
them along with supportive local businesses.
The organizers hope the Heritage Festival continues to strengthen the respect of Pondicherians for the traditions and treasures
of this special seaside settlement, created by the confluence of cultures in a spectacularly beautiful setting. They believe that,
by celebrating the heritage, it will become an important aspects and Pondicherry will retain its unique character.
More information about the Pondicherry Heritage Festival and a schedule of events can be found at
pondicherryheritagefestival.in and https://www.facebook.com/PondicherryHeritageFestival/ and pondylive.com the
festival’s online media partner. A full list of partners is available on the PHF website.

Street Play

Like other open streets around the world, street play Pondicherry is a free event that invited everyone to enjoy in the street without the presence of motors .walk, run, skate, roll along the temporarily closed street, with fun events programming up and down the street. This event was organised by Ar. Ananthi G Velmurugan, Conservation Architect and supported by INTACH and people for Pondicherry Heritage. Posters with tree names in Tamil and English were tied to each tree. Seating arrangements were made with recycled materials were made with recycled materials. Children were also given traditional refreshments such as peanut ladoo, sesame ladoo, buttermilk, watermelon, cucumber, and ‘panagam’ a jajjery based sweet drink. Shade made out of sarees gave a colourful view of the street.

Food Trail

An exclusive food walk was conducted from Feb 7- Feb 8. The food walk explored the local cuisine of Pondicherry ranging from local road side shops to restaurants to coffee shops to ice cream bars. The tour was designed and guided by ? of Eat Pondy. While the tour was free, participants paid for their food. Both the days, the trail was a hit and people kept asking for more such walks.s.

OTHER PERFORMANCES

On 5th February, a Hindustani classical – Sarod recital was performed by Giridhar Murthy. This event happened in gratitude heritage.

On 31st January musical band of Siddharth was organised by Pondicherry Heritage Festival in Band stand, behind the Craft bazaar.

Dance competition for College students was held at Alliance Francaise auditorium on 30th January, every student participated in this dance competition with full enthusiasm.

Pondicherry Heritage festival conducted a program in Alliance Francaise, on 4th February. Carnatic music students presented folk songs on nature in several languages. Group of children performed ballet dance and hip hop. It was a visual treat.

Cycle tour

Cycle tour of Pondy’s water bodies was organised by Pondicherry Heritage festival, on 2nd February at 6:00am.This tour was organised in 3 phases.

• The first one which is a 5km cycle ride in and around boulevard town which is the shortest ride
• The medium ride is 15km which covers water bodies till velrampet. • Then a 50km ride which is till bahour.

The starting point for all these 3 paths was the Bharati Park. Many youngsters participated in this cycle tour, made awareness to the people about water conservation. The ultimate aim of this cycle tour was to look back the lakes and ponds in Pondicherry, and take preventive measures to regain its glory.

Talks & Discussions

Geography of the night:

On 29th January, we had discussion with a French expert Luc Gwaizdzinski about illustration of city at night. He raised questions to the audience, why night was so neglected? , why public authorities forgot to plan the city for the night?, why nocturnal hours are too often considered in negative terms? . He also stated that like human body, cities are bound by the rhythm of the transition between day and night. In etymological terms too, the night was cast in negative shade, in European language the term is constructed negatively.

Since it means ‘not-8’ (n-ight, n-otte, n-uit....), the eight meaning the 8 hours human beings spend sleeping. Luc Gwaizdzinski said “fortunately certain awareness is emerging, cities are beginning to be designed for the night and “night mayors” are even sometimes elected to better manage these night spaces.

Celebrating the 6th Heritage Festival of Pondicherry -2020

Children's Heritage activities

Creative Expressions

Street Play

Book launches

WORKSHOPS

On 25th January, Warli Art workshop was conducted in SITA Cultural Centre, by Sri devi. This rudimentary wall paintings use a set of basic geometric shapes: a circle, a triangle, and a square. These shapes are symbolic of different elements of nature. .

Madhubani art workshop was conducted by Sri devi, teacher in SITA Cultural Centre, on 1st February. These paintings were traditionally done on freshly plastered mud walls and floors of huts, but now they are also done on cloth, handmade paper and canvas

Pondicherry Food

Various Cooking classes were organised by Pondicherry Heritage Festival, at SITA Cultural Centre, on recipes from Pondicherry. This event was conducted by Shafeya. The ultimate aim of this workshop is to bring out our traditional Pondicherry cooking style.

Food Trail

UNESCO workshop in collaboration with Govt of Pondicherry

Theatre

Music

Dance

OTHER PERFORMANCES

On 5th February, a Hindustani classical – Sarod recital was performed by Giridhar Murthy. This event happened in gratitude heritage.

On 31st January musical band of Siddharth was organised by Pondicherry Heritage Festival in Band stand, behind the Craft bazaar.

Dance competition for College students was held at Alliance Francaise auditorium on 30th January, every student participated in this dance competition with full enthusiasm.

Pondicherry Heritage festival conducted a program in Alliance Francaise, on 4th February. Carnatic music students presented folk songs on nature in several languages. Group of children performed ballet dance and hip hop. It was a visual treat.

Made in Pondy

Waterscapes Evening walk

Wetlands Photo exhibition

Pondicherry Heritage Festival organised a Photo exhibition on 1st February, at French Institute of Pondicherry. Photos were exhibited on the Eastern sea facing wall. This was open to public till the end of the month. Prizes were given for the best photography.

Cycle tour

Talks & Discussions

Inauguration

Inauguration and blessing by the Archbishop for Renovation of St. Joan of Arc garden.

Reception and closing of the Festival