Winter session casts a shadow on cultural events in Nagpur

NAGPUR: The holding of state Assembly's winter session in Nagpur is now one of the reasons in the long list of excuses which are stalling the growth of a cultural environment in the city. The biggest one is non availability of auditoriums for staging various cultural events.
The biggest and the best auditorium is Vasantrao Deshpande hall which closes for renovations around 1 ^stof November every year.The purpose is to refurbish it for the winter session which begins around the second week of December. "This puts it out of bound for us for an entire month and then in the month of December it is available only if we have a function which features a minister or if we have a recommendation letter from a minister saying that it should be given to the organizer," says Samir Pandit.
What is worst is that now cultural organizations do not plan events in December. "It is too risky as the auditoriums are not available," says Vilas Manekar an executive member of cultural organization Saptak. There are many felicitation programmes happening in the city and then there are traffic snarls and diversions to cope with. This makes the prospective viewers weary of stepping out of their homes.
"Better options like planning picnincs outside the city and going out for short trips now catch the fancy of people who are gradually being weaned away from art and cultural shows," feels Manekar.