Preview: Festival brings Bollywood to Egypt

Back for its second edition, the India by the Nile festival started its month-long series of film screenings, workshops, concerts, exhibitions, talks and culinary events on April 1. Its intention is to exhibit the diversity of India’s culture around this year’s “Women of Substance” theme, which explores points of similarity between women in India and Egypt.

The events, almost all of which are free, range from the fun to the weighty. One highlight is likely to be the talk between Egyptian writer Saher al-Mougy and Urvashi Butalia. Butalia, an Indian feminist, publisher and historian, co-founded Kali for Women, India’s first feminist publishing house, in 1984. Chief among her own books is “The Other Side of Silence” (2000), first hand accounts of the 1947 Partition of India, with a focus on violence against women.

This will take place on the last days of the festival, April 17 and 19, when thinkers and writers from Indian and Egypt will be paired off to discuss various topics around “Society and Culture in Transition.” As well as Mougy and Butalia, the panels will feature Egyptian artist George Bahgory, Writers Union head Mohamed Salmawy, social entrepreneur Ravi Venkatesan and self-taught veteran political cartoonist Sudhir Tailang. Tailang will also be showing some satirical cartoons in an exhibition at the Opera House complex titled “India Ink.”

Celebrated dancer Marami Medhi’s performances of kathak, one of the eight forms of Indian classical dance, in Cairo and Alexandria also promise to be memorable in quite a different way.

India by the Nile hopes to eventually boost spending in Egypt while exporting Indian culture, festival director Sanjoy Roy of Teamwork Productions said in a press conference Monday.

He pointed out that in London the entertainment industry contributes £7.9 billion to national spending in the city, in New York US$11.3 billion is provided to the economy annually through culture, and the Edinburgh festival added £175 million of spending to the city last year.

Roy’s production house, Teamwork, currently produces 23 annual festivals in 21 cities in 13 countries. He said that Teamwork’s Jaipur Literature Festival in India brought in roughly $4 million.

“Culture is about building a platform and space for people to express, for people to understand each other, and to understand each other’s philosophy,” Roy added.

The festival is a collaboration with the Indian Embassy in Cairo, and is supported by various partners including  TCI Sanmar Chemicals, Sahl Hasheesh and Egypt’s Cultural Development Fund.

“Bollywood Love Story – A Musical” opened the festival on Tuesday at the Cairo Opera House and will be travelling to Alexandria, Sahl Hasheesh and Luxor. More than 35 dancers perform to music from Indian films in an attempt to recreate the colors and flavors of Bollywood India. Produced by Roy, it features several types of Bollywood dance. Some segments are choreographed in pure classical dance styles such as kathak (North India) and bharat natyam (South India), while others are inspired by hip-hop, ballet, salsa, cha cha and tango.

An exhibition, “Sari: The Magic of Indian Weaves,” will be on from April 9 to 12 at the Mahmoud Mokhtar Museum. It’s a tribute to Indian craftsmanship through saris woven in seven of India’s states. Curator Rta Kapur Chishti says she has identified 108 styles of sari, and is interested in the garment’s ability to perpetually reinvent itself.

Javed Akhtar, a widely known Indian lyricist, will give a talk about the song in Indian cinema, while Shabana Azmi, a prolific and politically engaged Indian actress, will be in conversation with Egyptian film critic Samir Farid, director of this year’s Cairo Film Festival. Azmi’s most popular films will also screen, including “Godmother” (1999), in which she plays a woman who rises from housewife to powerful politician. Other films screened will include female director Zoya Akhtar’s “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,” (2011) a coming-of-age comedy set in Spain.

As for music, the group Rajasthan Josh will play northwestern Indian folk music in both Alexandria and Cairo. The ensemble use the nagara, shehnai, dhol, sarangi and vocal styles ranging from Sufi to popular folk songs of Rajasthan.

Finally, Cairo’s Semiramis hotel will host an Indian food fiesta from April 14 to 19. Food from India’s north, south, east and west will be available, and reservations, apparently, should be made in advance through the festival’s website.