If you thought having an Icelandic Cultural Festival here in a city so far removed geographically from the Nordic island-nation was an outlandish idea, you couldn’t be more wrong.
Not only does the Land of Extremes (Fire and Ice)---in fact Iceland is a bit of a misnomer for a land mass forged from a volcanic eruption millions of years ago — have very strong links to this former French enclave historically, there are other connections that lend rationale for such a festival in Puducherry.
As Iceland Ambassador to India Thorir Ibsen explained at the launch of the Icelandic Cultural Festival (March 9-16) at the Maison Colombani, Alliance Francaise on Friday, there are quite a few good reasons to celebrate an Icelandic festival in this city.
Mr. Ibsen, who is the fourth Ambassador of Iceland with residence in India since the Embassy was established in New Delhi in 2006, points out that the first Icelander to visit India was an Icelander Jon Olafsson.
The ‘Indíafari’ (India-traveller) would go on to write a travelogue which is one of the most authoritative accounts of life in the 17th century in this part of the world but the book continues to be widely cited to this day by scholars and researchers, Mr. Ibsen noted.
The Ambassador proceeded to make an even stronger case when he pointed out that this city was home to one of the largest expat population of Icelanders in India and included designers, architects and renewable energy experts.
He added that the Icelandic Cultural Festival featuring the best of the Nordic island-nation in spheres of culture, music, movies and art was the brain-child of the Iceland-Pondicherry Friendship Society, which is one of the few national fora of its kind.
The event is being supported by the Embassy of Iceland in New Delhi, the Alliance Francaise and the Indo-Iceland Business Association.
Lalit Verma, Alliance Francaise president, said the first ever Icelandic festival was a landmark both for the Alliance Francaise and the city which was always open to new thoughts and diverse culture. In fact, the idea of such a fete was at least two years in the making, he added.
Shortly after a brief rendition by Trio Reykjavik (Sigridur Thorlacius (vocals), Asgeir Asgeirsson (guitar) and Haukur Grondal (sax) — they have a full concert on Sunday — the dignitaries headed to Cafe de Flore to visit the contemporary art exhibition curated by art historian Jon Proppe featuring works of Gudjon Bjarnason, Olof Nordal, Mireya Samper and Erla Thorarinsdottir.
An action-filled week will include a premiere on Saturday of ‘Ploey-You Never Fly Alone’ (English version), an animated film by Árni Ásgeirsson, a conference on Monday on the topic ‘India and Iceland: Our Shared History’, and the screening of a film ‘Volcano’ by Runar Runarsson (Tuesday) and ‘The Homecoming’ by Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson (Wednesday).
