A biennale for Banaras: 'Kashi Light' will spread art, music and craft across the city from November 27

Kashi is being readied for a city-wide art season on the lines of the Paris Biennale. Titled "Kashi Light — City as Sensorium", it is being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and runs from November 27 to December 31. The framing is deliberate: a city you hear, taste and remember, rather than one you merely look at. Instead of a single venue, the programme is spread across the city — Banaras Hindu University, Bharat Kala Bhavan, Gyan Pravah, Namo Ghat and Tulsi Ghat among them. Visual art, photography and sculpture will sit alongside khayal and dhrupad, and the city's own folk repertoire of kajri, chaiti and thumri. Around 1,000 entrepreneurs are expected over the run, including a top-100 group of Indian business leaders, along with delegates from Italy, Spain, America and other European countries. Invitations have been extended to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister and the Governor. The plan has a weaver-facing arm too. Organisers have proposed skill-training and employment centres, and support programmes aimed at an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 weaver families in Ramnagar, Lohta and Badi Bazar — an attempt to route some of the season's attention, and some of its buyers, back to the looms that made the city's name in the first place.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala