A street full of kolam-s; Krishnan Thoothu, a play by Arulmigu Srimandaveli Amman Nadaga Mandram;

folk dances by students from Queen Mary's College

a part of the buzz at the Mylapore Festival.

A street festival has a life of its own. The annual Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival’s 2015 edition (January 8th to 11th) had more of these elements than ever before.

The back-to-back performances of a medley of folk dances by a team of students from Queen Mary’s College, and the kattai-koothu recitals by  the Arulmigu Srimandaveli Amman Nadaga Mandram, Cheyyar Taluk, Thiruvannamalai, lent that unique colour.

The festival, the only one of its kind in the city, always hosts events in the streets and lanes that run off from the Sri Kapali Temple zone precincts in Mylapore. Each street is themed – craft, food, home products, kolam, live performances. The idea behind this curation is to treat the zone as a religion-cultural-heritage space and set the festival in it.

Besides the street performances, the weekend kolam contests this year turned out to be Kolam Displays – the 90 kolams designed by the participants were protected, the floodlights switched on them and the east end of North Mada Street turned into something of a live art installation.

By doing this, visitors who came in later in the evening could enjoy the kolam-s. This has enthused the Festival Curator to consider hosting a late evening kolam contest in the same area and build a food and performance zone here.

This year, the five Heritage Walks/Tours got a huge response. The leaders were Cycling Yogis, Sriram V., Chithra Madhavan, Sridhar Venkataraman and T. Sundari.

If Sriram led his group of 60 people to what were once villages in this area, Sridhar showed foodies the snack joints that thrive here, while architect Sundari focussed on local architecture as the group walked around the temple zone, and Chithra Madhavan put the spotlight on four ancient temples on the other side of Kutchery Road.

As always, the Food Street was packed on all four evenings of the fest. This year, the stall promoters were asked not to cook snacks on the spot – but their mouth-watering dishes sold out by 10 p.m.

This year, a small Organic Food Bazaar was created on  Pitchu Pillai Street. It allowed  people to sample the stuff and interact with the stall-holders.

The Fest also launched a public petition – asking the City Traffic Police to consider making the three Mada Streets ‘one way’ and to create a ‘walk only’ zone for certain hours on the weekend. (You can sign this online petition if you support this issue at http://bit.ly/Mylapore-Mada-Streets-Petition.)

The Mylapore Festival has been the trigger for a few local community initiatives. One such is the ‘mike-less’ concert in the park, a series that was first launched by this Festival.

Hopefully, the call for changes in the Mada Streets’ traffic system, aimed at improving the condition of this heritage zone gets a positive nod from the Police and the Chennai Corporation. (Courtesy: Mylapore Times)