Bhubaneswar: March 31: The visitors of the Ekamra Walks (Old Town Circuit) today had a collage of tradition, art, architecture, experience with the chariot building techniques of Lord Lingaraj and a beautiful recital of Odissi dance at Art Vision, the famous academy of classical dance by non other than Padma Shri Ileana Citaristi, the Italian dancer, who had made the Old City her home for the seer love of Odishan culture and heritage.
The walkers comprised orthopaedics surgeons who are currently here in the city to attend a national level CME (Continuing Medical Education) on orthopaedics. While Dr Ashwini, a senior surgeon from Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences came calling with his friends from Hyderabad, his friend of 15 years Dr Subhandu Naik, also an Orthopaedic surgeon from IRC Village, Nayapalli accompanied him. Another orthopaedic surgeon from Mangalore Dr. Harikiran Bangera joined the Jain Heritage Trail at Khandagiri-Udayagiri with family, yesterday.
Dr. Subhendu’s wife Sikha Singh, a city-based Gynaecologist also joined the team with common friend Ashish Goel, a banker with ICICI Bank, Mumbai.
Dr Ashwini termed the day’s experince through the Ekamra Walks (Old Town Circuit) a experince of lifetime and how he got a glimpse through the rich tradition of temple building, creation of the chariot of Lord Lingaraj and knowing the living tarditions of the Old City of Bhubaneswar during the journey.
The Chariot of Lord Lingaraj, also called Rukuna Ratha (the local name of the devine vehicle of the Lord) is tugged by lakhs of devotees on the car festival of Lord Lingaraj during the month of April.
Odissi dancers and disciples of Guru Ileana Citaristi, Upasana Mohanty, Minati Mohapatra and Mousumi Mohapatra sported ensembles with the logo of Ekamra Walks like brand ambassadors as they also participated in letting the visitors know about how the dance form has evolved its great postures and mudras from temple walls and how the mudras come to the minds of the artisans and what they meant in life.
Upasana led the visitors to show the body posture of “Chauka”, a basic posture in Odissi which is distinctly seen on the Northern wall of 7th Century Parasurameswar Temple. The visitors also happily reciprocated and tried the “Chauka” posture as guide by the dancer. It can be mentioned here that Odissi had two distinct postures of the body, i.e. “Tribhangi” which makes the body to take a shape of a triangle and “Chauka” a rectangle. It is said that through the latter one can gauge his/her latent potential or energy.
Two students of IIT Bhubaneswar, i.e. P. Chaitanya from final year Mechanical and K. Snigdha, final year Computer Sciences came and joined the trail. Snigdha was with her parents K. Gurumurthy and SN Padmavathi. The Gurumurthy family from Vijayawada also joined the Jain Heritage trail at Khandagiri and Udayagiri yesterday.
The Odissi recital at Art Vision was appreciated by all walkers as the dancers presented a beautiful dance drama through their subtle, tender and graceful poses and mudras. The visitors also went to the medicinal plant garden Ekamra Van, which is with over 200 varities of rare and local species of medicinal plants useful for men, women and children. Accordingly, the spread is also divided artistically and aesthetically with a focus on three segments mythologicall having Lord Shiva, Devi Parvati and Baby Ganesha in mind for men, women and kids.
