Party time in Juhu

January in Juhu and it’s party time. The Citizen’s Group is taking a break from clearing road blocks and battling beach encroachments. Earlier in the week, slim blue and white flyers are slipped into mailboxes and under doors in most households in the area. ‘Volunteers required’, they invite, ’for the Juhu Hamara Festival 2006’, details set against a beguiling logo of a radiant sun on the sea.
So calls flood in - a few want to help, others to attend festivities and many to see the stars.
Juhu Citizen members dash around in different directions – Hansel is putting together the free film screenings, Gulu Gadekar makes the round of local schools for kiddie activities and Adolf processes entries for Sunday evening’s talent night. So much classical music and dance, he discovers. Age old traditions from ‘Nandan’, the celebrated Bharat Natyam School opposite Amitabh Bachchan’s shrub filled and fenced palatial house ‘Pratiksha’ . From ‘Sangeet Mahabharti’, the singing institute in the striking old world house and garden across the road.
Song and dance, and the grounds opposite the Shoppers Stop Mall are beginning to look festive. Here’s where Hema Malini will inaugurate the festival and Ahana Deol will perform a traditional Ganesh vandana dance. The Mall itself with it’s strings of fairy lights and giant glass windows will be host to a series of literary readings. It’s sprawling basement Crossword will see an enactment of Dalit writer Urmila Pawar’s gritty autobiography ‘Ayudaan’, stories of the sea by Juhu Versova born poet Saleem Peeradina, Arundhati Subramaniam and Anand Thakore’s poetry of the sea and a reading from ‘The Girl’, journalist Sonia Faleiro’s haunting debut novel of love and betrayal set on the sea.
A few streets away, the Kaifi Azmi Park with it’s carefully coiffured landscaping, paths and podiums will be another scene for much bustle and buzz – pot painting, craft work and kite flying. At Juhu Jagruti, Javed Akhtar inaugurates the film festival with a mix of Mumbai gems like Anand Patwardhan’s classic commentary and Paromita Vohra’s neighbourhood documentaries. Oh, and there’s the Juhu Dream Run , Sunday 8 am everybody, the gorgeous Pooja Bedi’s going to flag off runners from the spacious Jamnabai Narsee School Grounds, deep in the heart of the gulmohar tree lined JVPD Scheme.

This appeared in the Mumbai Mirror Jan 18th