Rina Jena from Calcutta presents Odissi at Nritya Sangam at Tata auditorium on Monday. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, Jan. 21: Art connoisseurs in the city couldn’t have asked for more. From classical nights to visits by international-level artists and scholars to a dance festival — Jamshedpur is surely back in the groove.

If the chock-a block calendar for this month and the remaining days is any estimation, January 2008 has been one of the busiest months in the steel city in terms of mega events being organised.

The month began with the four-day Tata Steel centenary celebrations Shatrang, which witnessed a host of events.

“Though winter is the time for such events, but there is no doubt that this year the events are much more than what we have normally seen earlier,” said Ashish Chaudhary, the general secretary of Tagore Society, a city cultural organisation, which is gearing up to host a Rabindra Sangeet Conference from January 25.

Slated to be a three-day extravaganza, over 10 leading singers, including three from Bangladesh, will perform at the event. “The numbers of artistes are much higher this time,” added Chaudhary. While there is still time for the music conference to begin it does not mean any respite for art lovers.

The five-day classical dance festival Nritya Sangam too is doing its bit to add to the cultural pace of the steel city.

Organised by the state tourism department in association with Sangeet Natak Akademi, over 12 classical dancers of international acclaim are slated to perform here. It is after a gap of almost 20 years that such a huge event is being organised here. Some leading names who are yet to perform are Ibemubi Devi from Manipur, Kathak dancer Aditi Mangaldas from Delhi, Odissi maestros Minati and Manoranjan Pradhan from Bhubaneswar among others.

But the long list does not end here. Yesterday, another mega event — the UGC sponsored international conference on the national language — got over which hosted over 100 guests.

Prior to that, some other big events were the Ranchi University youth festival, multi-lingual drama festival, visit by students from North Carolina and Loyola Universities, children’s film festival.

Coming up next are a musical night by Bengali singer Rupankar at Telco later this month and the national youth congress to be organised by YMCA from February 8. Over 250 volunteers from across the country will participate in the youth congress.

“It has indeed been a hectic month for all of us here. This is the first time that we are playing host to two events of such magnitude,” said Shukla Mohanty, the principal of Jamshedpur Women’s College, which hosted two of the events.