Fun & frolic marks Karnival end

KOLKATA: You could have been from India, you may have come from France. Or you could well be an Englishman — but you just had to dance.
Over 10,000 people from all walks of life packed into the Millennium Park on Sunday evening to watch a breathtaking finale to the 10-day long UK & Kolkata festival, kicked off by the Birmingham Youth Orchestra and ending with a stunning display of fireworks from a ship in the middle of the river Hooghly.
In between what held the thousands who stood or sat around the open air theatre inside the Park, was a dazzling performance from danseuse Tanshuree Shankar''s team of over 200 young boys and girls. Dressed in bright, colourful clothes they danced to Carribean and Indian music scores, setting the stage alight with their magical movements. Girls came dressed as peacocks with their headgear of peacock feathers lighted up with powerful batteries. Others came dancing on a riot of colours, some holding huge green leaves, others in period dresses from across time.
Sitting among the crowd were state urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya, British deputy high commissioner Andrew Hall, chairman of London Rivers Association George Nicholson and the woman who worked endless for over a year to make the Kolkata carnival a reality — Ali Pretty. As dusk fell and the sun set on the Hooghly, celebrities and others joined the dancers — jiving away to the music of ''Shawa Shawa''. Bhattacharya shook hands with Hall exclaiming that the programmed had been "really fantastic" and that he hoped the carnival would be back – bigger, better and equally wonderful – next year.