Eminent sculptor, IT professional and tourist from Germany join Ekamra Walks

Bhubaneswar: Eminent artist from Gurugram, German engineer with Odia wife, IT professional from Bengaluru with family, Odissi dancers participating in Dance Plus reality show on Star Plus with their Guru from the city were among the 95 walkers, who took part in the morning Ekamra Walks Old Town Circuit and the afternoon’s Museum Walk at Kala Bhoomi.

While 35 participants were there at the morning event including renowned sculptor from Guru Gram Arunkunar HG, who was in the city to take part in the pre-event familiarization before the Bhubaneswar Art Trail-2018 project, Odissi Guru Prabhat Swain from Nritya Naivedya joined with his dancers Biswarupa Dixit and Preetipriya Behera as the proud girls are the participants of the reality show Dance Plus in Star Plus channel and their episode was aired yesterday at 8 pm on Saturday.

Biswarupa said that the heritage structures with poses or ``mudras’’ of ladies on their walls were once the inspiration to start the Classical dance form. ``Through meaningful conservation and popularization of these sites we can really project Odisha in a better way,’’ she added. She also demonstrated an Odissi mudra to the visitors near Mukteswar Temple.

Rajiv Prakash, an IT professional from India’s IT Capital Bengaluru joined the Old Town Circuit with his daughter Gayatri. ``It was a lovely experience in the Old Town area of Bhubaneswar and we really enjoyed the time,’’ said Rajiv. Later both the father-daughter duo with their other family members also joined the Museum Walk at Kala Bhoomi and also learnt many things on the art and craft scenario of the State.

The eminent sculptor Arunkumar HG said ``this is perhaps the only city in India with so many beautiful temples and water bodies in such a proximal cluster and all are having such a beautiful environment around themselves. I think it is time the city authorities should try to get the Heritage City tag so that more and more tourists from abroad would come and there would be a sea change in the local economy.’’

City-born Prescela Satapathy joined the walk with her German husband Chung Min Suh. Prescela, educated in Germany is now doing her research through an UCG project at Utkal University, Vani Vihar. ``I have now come to Odisha and do some projects on environmental science. I will live to explore the heritage structures more often,’’ she added.

Chung, an engineer, who wants to be an entrepreneur, said ``my parents were from Korea and they migrated around the early 60s to Germany and now we are settled there. I have come to the city on several occasions, but came to the Old City for the first time. I really loved the place very much.’’