The winners of the CIMA Awards join Team CIMA to shower rose petals into a giant urli for the inauguration of the CIMA Awards Show presented by Reliance Industries and powered by YES Bank, in association with The Telegraph. Spread over four venues — CIMA Gallery, Ramdulari Park, Studio21 and Academy of Fine Arts — the month-long show will feature winning and other handpicked works of art by artists from around the country that made it to the first CIMA Awards, conceived to recognise new talents in visual arts. Meant to be a feast for artists and art lovers, other highlights include talks and presentations at Ramdulari Park every evening by known faces from diverse fields alongside collateral projects at various venues to bring creative minds together 

The inauguration of the CIMA Awards Show at Ramdulari Park on Saturday opened with verses from Binoy Majumdar’s book of poetry, Phire Esho Chaka, and an English translation of an excerpt from Jibanananda Das’s Mahaprithibi recited by theatre artiste Jayati Chakraborty 

Jogen Chowdhury, who was a part of the advisory board for the CIMA Awards and also a part of the final jury, congratulated the organisers for creating a platform for young artists. “It is for the first time that we are having an art project and exhibition to promote our art scene. Out of 2,000 applications we selected 159 works and with no idea about the artist, be it their names or their backgrounds. These are good and serious artists and I hope they will continue to be creative and enrich art and Calcutta, through such programmes, will become significant,” he said

Bent over his guitar, Anupam Roy set the tone for the warm and leisurely afternoon with songs and strings — from his “song on unrequited love” Ekbar bol to Phanka frame “for the love of Bangla bhasha” and Bawshonto 
eshe gechhe “for the love of CIMA”  

Paresh Maity, one of the country’s top artists, made time to be in Calcutta for the CIMA Awards on Friday and to browse through artworks on display at Ramdulari Park, the 19th Century bungalow on Ballygunge Park Road that has been used to mount artworks, on Saturday. “A fantastic initiative that will definitely offer a lot of encouragement to young and upcoming artists who are rooted and so dynamic. The way in which the jurists discovered so many small-town unknown artists was also very unique. I got to see such good art in paintings, drawings, sculptures and installations. Fantastic!” 

American pianist (extreme left) Jennifer Heemstra and (in sari) Lata Bajoria, the owner of Ramdulari Park, were among the first batch of guests at the CIMA Awards Show who went around browsing the artworks mounted in the old bungalow

Text by Mohua Das; pictures by Rashbehari Das