Artistes from Rajasthan perform Kalbelia dance at New Patna Club on Sunday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Jan. 8: Tunes of Rajasthani music drew residents in hordes to the annual celebration of Bihar Pradeshik Marwari Sammelan — Padharo Mhare Des.

People gathered at New Patna Club to enjoy the fest, which the organisers described as “the fragrance of Rajasthan”.

On offer for the guests was a Kalbelia performance, one of the dances from the land of dunes and forts, by traditional folk artistes. To add to the fest attractions were camel and elephant rides, performance by a troupe from Rajasthan and mouth-watering dishes. Although the items on the platter were not from Rajasthan, the visitors were quite happy with the fare — chaat, pav bhaji, chowmein and pizza.

Class IV student of Carmel High School Vanshika was excited about her ride on the elephant. “Every year, I eagerly wait for this event as I know it is only here that I would get a chance to ride an elephant.”

Her eight-year-old brother, Mayank, was “double excited”. Not only did little Mayank reserve a ride on the elephant, he also set his sights on one of the two camels arranged at the venue for the rides.

Homemaker Rashmi, who was waiting for her dish at the chowmein stall, said: “I love the ambience here but the food really excited me. I am also going to try the chaat and golgappa”.

The women present at the venue also made perfect use of a mehndi stall put up at the event. Madhu Agarwal, who was applying mehndi on guests hands, said: “Our stall is one of the most crowded as we are not charging any money to apply mehndi. Everybody is coming to us, we are rushing against time”.

The performances for the day started off with a Ganesh vandana by Sakur Khan group, the troupe that came all the way from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan for the daylong event. Popular Rajasthani folk songs Kesaria Balam Padharo Mhare Des, Nimbooda and others soon followed.

Although the Sakur Khan group has come to the state capital twice before, this was their first performance for Padharo Mhare Des.

Kazi Khan, one of the members, said the troupe is happy at the chance to perform in Patna for the third time. “This is the third time we have come to Patna. Whenever we have performed here, we got a huge response from the audience. So this time too, we are excited at the chance to perform. We hope to get the same response this time as well.”

The musical troupe is quite a globetrotting one having performed all over the country as well as the world. Khan said: “We have performed in Russia, America and many other countries of the world. We approach every event with the same attitude and give them equal effort.”

As the performances from Sakur Khan group drew to a close, the schoolchildren present at the event rushed to the seven game stalls set up at the club. While at Swayamvar Season 3, the young participants had to match star Salman Khan with a Bollywood actress from among chits in a bowl, in Feed the Joker, they had to aim the ball at the open mouth of a clown, which was cut out of cardboard. The children also tried their hands at other games like Between the Cards, Break the Pyramid and Lucky Dip.

Randeep Jhunjhunwala, treasurer, Bihar Pradeshik Marwari Sammelan, said: “This is the ninth edition of our programme, Padharo Mhare Des. At this event, we want the residents to get a feel of Rajasthan. That was the reason we stared this programme. We make it a point to include the art and culture of Rajasthan, so, this year, we brought in Rajasthani musical troupe. The artistes have come from Jaisalmer to present the folk performances of Rajasthan. The women in the group also performed the traditional Kalbelia dance, which is characterised by performers spinning in a circle to a beat.”