Park Circus Maidan: X
Eden Gardens: X
Mohun Bagan: X
Mohammedan Sporting: X
East Bengal Club: X
Netaji Indoor:
Ghulam Ali's Calcutta concert next week has finally found a stage after missing out on five other venues in the vicinity.
The Pakistani ghazal veteran will perform at the Netaji Indoor Stadium on January 12, a venue that was chosen over the others despite offering less seating capacity for the concert.
The choice was apparently dictated by ambience rather than space. The football grounds across the Maidan would have accommodated a larger audience but police ruled them out because Ganga Sagar pilgrims pitch tents nearby ahead of Poush Sankranti and the ambient noise might jar Ali's mellifluous music, sources said.
From Park Circus Maidan to Eden to Mohun Bagan Club and finally Netaji Indoor Stadium, the culmination of the hunt for a venue has come at the cost of audience size. The Mohun Bagan ground could have accommodated up to 20,000 people, the closest to 30,000-plus Eden. Netaji Indoor Stadium would have space for not more than 9,000 seats after the stage is built.
"We will have to cut down on the number of invitees we had originally planned to have," said one of the organisers. "Omitting names from the list would be tough."
The venue was finalised late on Friday after the police, who had first cleared the Mohun Bagan ground, did a rethink and deemed it unfit for the concert. Lalbazar, the headquarters of Calcutta police, conveyed its reservations about the venue to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, citing the possibility of noise from the Ganga Sagar camps along Strand Road.
"Visitors to Ganga Sagar have already started setting up camps. Over the next few days, more pilgrims will come. Some of these visitors might use mikes, in which case the concert would be disrupted," said a senior officer at Lalbazar. "The Netaji Indoor Stadium is a better choice in terms of acoustics."
Mamata, who had been busy at the Bengal Global Business Summit all day, selected Netaji Indoor Stadium as the venue. The stadium has been hosting the inauguration of the Calcutta Film Festival since Trinamul came to power.
"Ghulam Ali will be arriving on January 11 with his son," said Trinamul MP Sultan Ahmed, who had been trying to organise the concert at Park Circus Maidan.
