Experience India
The hands that kept the craft are building what comes next.
This is not just business. A guest arriving at the Utsav does not walk into another hotel ballroom dressed in corporate blue. They walk into India: its food, its music, its cloth, its stories. Then they meet the people building its future, and notice that it is the same country.
Why the culture is on the programme, and not beside it.
A craft that takes twenty-three steps teaches patience with process. A drawing made of one unbroken line teaches planning. A meal for a thousand guests teaches logistics. The habits that kept India’s traditions alive for centuries are the habits that make its engineers, analysts and operators good at what they do.
That is why the Utsav does not put culture in a separate hall. A decision about a country should involve the country.
The same India that has kept thousands of years of culture alive is building the future of global business.
The same hands
Craft
A line drawn around dots on a floor
Capability
A trace routed around pins on a board
Both are a path planned around fixed points.
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What three days will hold.
Our working plan. It may change.
Taste
Eight regional kitchens, one for each pavilion, cooking the food of their region across the three days
Hear
A different region’s music each evening, classical and folk
Watch
Dance and theatre from the eight regions, performed by artists who practise them
Touch
Craft made in front of you by weavers, painters, metalworkers and woodworkers, who are there to talk as well as to work
Wear
An invitation to wear Indian dress, with help choosing it and wearing it
Listen
The stories of each region, told by people from it
Eight regions, one table.
UNESCO recognises Indian cities for exactly the things a guest will meet here: Chennai for music, Hyderabad for gastronomy, Kozhikode for literature and Mumbai for film. Each pavilion page says what its region will bring.
- Pavilion
- A taste of what to expect
- Andhra Pradesh
- Kalamkari, Kuchipudi, and a table with plenty of chilli
- Delhi-NCR
- Hindustani music, Kathak, and the food of a crossroads
- Gujarat
- Garba, Patola silk, and the Gujarati thali
- Karnataka
- Yakshagana, Mysore silk, and filter coffee
- Kerala
- Kathakali, Kutiyattam, and a feast on a banana leaf
- Maharashtra
- Lavani, Paithani silk, and the food of the Konkan coast
- Tamil Nadu
- Bharatanatyam, cast bronze, and Carnatic music
- Telangana
- Pochampally ikat, Perini, and Hyderabadi biryani
How we will do it.
- Artists and artisans are paid, named and credited.
- Each region’s programme is chosen with people from that region.
- Nothing is staged as decoration. Every performance is introduced, and every craft can be asked about.
- Food is labelled, and vegetarian and other dietary needs are met at every meal.