Surprises galore for visitors at 50th Ekamra Walks

Bhubaneswar: On the occasion of 50th Ekamra Walks, the only guided weekend heritage tour of the Odisha’s capital city, surprises were galore as more than 90 participants participated and enjoyed their time, with their mind and soul soaked in the beauties of the ancient temple architecture, carvings and unique Kalinga temple building style.

While at the beginning of the 50th Ekamra Walks from the premises of the 10th Century wonder Mukteswar Temple, which is the epitome of Odishan temple craftsmanship and artistic arch, was eventful with the association of Odissi Classical vocal and the instruments like flute, tabla and sitar, four travelers from Australia and one from Romania were happy discovering the details of the beautiful monument, which, as per historians have unique influence of Hindu, Buddha and Jaina with its carvings.

Odissi Vocal

Sumanta Maharana had the Odissi vocal recital today, accompanied by Jagat Ranjan Patnaik on flute, Sushant Kumar Jena on a table and Satyaban Sethi on sitar. Raagas like Bhairavi, Hansadhwani and Tudi were recited by Sumanta and groups.

They also recited some extremely popular Odis songs-Laura, Stefanie and Amanda along with Director Centurion Global, Ron Harper, all from Australia were happy to be part of the walk and especially the 50th edition of the event, which has become the part and parcel of the city’s life.

The three Australian girls are doing an internship at city cased Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM), where they would be doing part of their course curriculum and would be getting credits from their Australian university for that.

Ioana Uzum from Romania, accompanied by her daughter Swapna Harrison came for the second time and promised that she would try to visit Ekamra Walks each time, she would visit Odisha in future.

Tulsi Saplings @ beautiful gift

All the visitors were given souvenirs as a token of love from Team Ekamra Walks and at the end of the walk at Ekamra Van the Forest Department also distributed three varieties of Tulsi sapling as the small plant has a great role in curing common ailments and has very important role to play as a natural immune vitaliser.

ACF and in-charge of Ekamra Van Ashok Kumar Mishra while explaining the visitors the concept of the unique medicinal plant garden with the antique touch, said that by gifting the saplings of Tulsi, the authorities are creating an awareness for inspiring walkers to develop the habit of transplanting Tulsi across the country.

Return of Odissi @ Art Vision

As well-known Odissi and Chhow exponent of Odisha Ileana Citaristi was busy with a European tour and the Odissi recital was put on hold, but again resurfaced on the occasion of 50th Ekamra Walks.

The young students of Art-Vision, the institute run by Ileana Citaristi, staged two nice dances, i.e. Pallavi and Abhinaya. During the staging of Abhinaya, the pupils of the celebrated dancer from Ileana Cisaristi mesmerized the Ekamra Walkers with their powerful expression. They staged a theme centred around various forms of mother Goddess with an act Dasamahavidya.

Summarising the beauty of Odissi and the power of expression a dancer displays with this form of dance, Citaristi added “dance is a language which comes from the carvings on the Odishan ancient temples, but through dance we are expressing another language (here Sanskrit) with the powerful Abhinaya.’’

The visitors today visited the monuments like Mukteswar, Parasurameswar, Swarna Jaleswar, Kotitirtheswar, Bindusagar, Ananta Vasudev and its community kitchen, Doodhwala Dharamshala, Lingaraj Temple, Sari Deula, Mohini temple and Ekamra Van, among others other than the Odissi performance.