Organisers meeting in Ujjain finalised programme details for the 69th edition, with a Bhopal sign-off from Chief Minister Mohan Yadav's central committee due September 29.
Ujjain's local organising committee has locked in dates for this year's Akhil Bharatiya Kalidas Samaroh: November 21 to 27. The panel met Friday at the Kalidas Sanskrit Academy auditorium to hash out the festival's shape for its 69th edition, and the conversation kept circling back to one theme — how do you get young people to actually show up.
Rajya Sabha MP Balyogi Umeshnath, who was part of the discussion, framed the festival's purpose in plain terms: carrying Mahakavi Kalidas's literary thought and reflections to ordinary people, not just scholars. He wants Malwa's regional culture and its older knowledge traditions given real weight on the programme, alongside a bigger youth turnout than previous years have managed.
Divisional commissioner Asheesh Singh, who serves as the local committee's vice-chairman, pushed the same point from a different angle. His pitch: bring in artists and creative names who genuinely pull younger crowds, without diluting what the Samaroh is supposed to stand for. Connect it to the new generation, he said, but keep its dignity intact while doing it.
The meeting also worked through the guest list for the opening and closing ceremonies, the cultural programming slate, and events to be run separately by the Kalidas Sanskrit Academy and Samrat Vikramaditya Vishwavidyalaya. The National Kalidas Painting and Sculpture Exhibition, a fixture of the festival, is also on the calendar again.
None of this is final yet, though. Whatever the Ujjain committee has recommended now goes to a central committee sitting in Bhopal on September 29, chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Yadav. That's where the actual programme gets approved or reshaped.
A fair spread of local voices weighed in at Friday's session, journalists Nirukt Bhargava, Arjun Singh Chandel and Varun Shrimal among them, plus Maharshi Panini Sanskrit and Vedic University vice-chancellor Prof Shivshankar Mishra, social worker Sanjay Sharma, and Premchand Srijanpeeth director Mukesh Joshi. Prof Shailendra Kumar Sharma ran the meeting. Dr Govind Gandhe closed it out with the vote of thanks.
For a festival that's been running since long before most of its target youth audience was born, the tension is a familiar one for state-backed cultural events across India. Stay rooted in the classical material while finding ways to make a week of Kalidas readings and Sanskrit programming feel relevant to a 22-year-old scrolling Instagram. Whether the Bhopal committee backs Umeshnath's Malwa-first approach or Singh's youth-artist push, or lands somewhere in between, should become clear once the September 29 meeting wraps. Ujjain, for now, waits on Bhopal.
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.