The Indian Weekender Friday, 23 October 2020

The Indian Weekender Friday, October 23, 2020
NEW ZEALAND 9
Mayur Dance Academy to perform at
Wellington Diwali Festival’s opening ceremony
RIZWAN MOHAMMAD
The excitement for Diwali season will
begin with the Wellington Diwali
Festival, which is happening in the
capital city over the labour weekend.
One of the leading dance schools of Indian
cultural dances from Wellington, Mayur
Dance Academy is expressing rejoice for the
opportunity to perform at the official opening
ceremony at the Wellington Diwali Festival.
The festival has survived the Covid scare
that has disrupted and cancelled many major
cultural events all around the country, courtesy
to the zeal of the Wellington Council to deliver
an opportunity to Wellingtonians to celebrate in
this unusual year and the meticulous planning
of the production team to hold the festival
under Alert Level 1.
Wellingtonians are in for a treat this
Sunday as Wellington Diwali kicks off with
an impressive display of light, music, food,
cultural performances and end with fireworks.
The Indian Weekender spoke with Mayur
Dance Academy founder Suparna Basu who
was enthralled to share her excitement for
bringing four slots of performances on the
Diwali stage this Sunday at Wellington Diwali
Festival.
Suparna Basu, a trained classical Indian dance
master, also told the Indian Weekender that her
students have been performing for all eight
years of Wellington Diwali Festival.
Her school is known for teaching classical
Indian dance forms such as Bharatnatyam,
Kathak, Bollywood to dance and music
enthusiasts, especially young Kiwi Indians in
the Wellington region.
“We have been part of the Diwali festival for
eight years now and have entertained the crowd
with the richness of Indian classical dance and
music.
“This year, Mayur Dance Academy students
OPINION: Did National ever have a 'plan' for this election?
SANDEEP SINGH
National Party will undoubtedly be
on a soul-searching introspection
mission soon. However, the first thing
that it could do well now, is to acknowledge
the grim reality that it never “had a plan” for
this election.
The “plan” that National’s campaign
messages were trumpeting loud and
boisterously in the lead up to the election - was
for a supposed economic recovery - from the
current downturn that the country was facing
because of Covid-infliction disruptions.
Surprisingly, there was no “plan” to deal with
the continuously rising popularity of Prime
Minister Jacinda Ardern, which has further
risen after New Zealand’s success in managing
the impact of public health pandemic.
Instead, the party had remained either
delusional or distracted or just not bothered
with Prime Minister Ardern’s continuously
rising popularity.
Contrary to 2017, it was not the “stardust” that
the National had then chosen to contemptuously
define and subsequently ignore, and just been
hoping that it will automatically recede by the
time of next election when it will supposedly
fail to deliver many of their aspirational goals.
It was merely wishful thinking, which clearly
had not unfolded as per the party’s hopes.
In the lead up to 2020 election, what National
was facing was not mere “stardust” of an
untested, freshly minted, a seemingly woke and
glamorous leader, who was anointed out of turn
within her party to turn around its fortunes.
Rather Ardern had transcended into a truly
popular leader who had been at the helm of
will be opening the event that will be followed
with the formal ceremony of the festival with
dignitaries and guests,” Suparna Basu said.
The dance group in the past has performed
at the parliament, Holi festival, temples,
Diwali celebrations of Indian associations
and community groups, and give an annual
production event for the dance school every
year.
Ms Basu adds that this year, 42 of near
200 students of Mayur Dance Academy will
be performing at the Diwali stage and their
National Party Leader Judith Collins (Photo Courtesy- RNZ / Samuel Rillstone)
affairs for one full term, led the nation through
some shocking crisis in a never-seen-before,
kind and compassionate style of leadership,
and maintained at least an economic status-quo
right till the Covid disruptions - if that gives
some assurance to National’s normal supporters
- and yet was popular.
National seems to have been misled by a
selective line of commentary appearing within
some sections of the media, which argued
that Ardern’s recent popularity was at best
erroneous, and an infatuation of “fear-stricken”
people who have been scared out of their
lives because of the manner of government’s
covid management.
While nothing wrong in such media
commentaries, despite reflecting upon the
intelligence level of the public a bit poorly,
it is for the political parties and their “thinktanks”
to know how best to process such
selective analyses.
Often, such passionate yet selective
performances will have three different forms of
classical, and one Bollywood dance.
“We have two groups of 12, one of eight
and another ten who will perform at the Diwali
event this weekend.
“Our students are very excited to be a part
of this years’ event as this is their first big
stage performance in the last eight months as
evidently, most of the events were cancelled or
postponed due to Covid-19 this year,” Ms Basu
added.
She says the students have been rehearsing
commentaries have to be reconciled with more
divergent-assessments of the same political
realities, to have a more comprehensive
understanding of complex challenges.
In politics, one is doomed to fail, if they
take a myopic view of any issue or challenge,
and National’s view of the political challenge
ahead, particularly ever since the Covid had
hit upon us was extremely myopic and a recipe
for disaster.
The National Party had clearly underestimated
Ardern’s massive popularity and never had
a “plan” to deal with a first-term popular
Prime Minister.
This was also an outcome of the party’s
failure in comprehending the electoral outcome
of 2017 elections and coming to terms to the
new reality of sitting in opposition, despite then
being the single largest party in the parliament.
The party had since then been living in
their own little world with a false self-entitled
view that it deserved to be in the government
for their performances for six weeks now, and
each of the performances will be something
fresh, new, and diverse to offer.
About Wellington Diwali Festival 2020
The Wellington Diwali Festival of 2020
will be unique is it is the only Diwali event in
New Zealand which will be held on a massive
scale with the expectation of the attendance of
thousands at the venues.
The event does not just offer great music,
exhilarating performances and festive
ambience but also lip-smacking snacks from
different corners of India, beverages, activities
such as Henna, art, craft and clothing stalls
etc. Not to forget, the event will be concluded
with a spectacular firework to be seen on the
waterfront.
The event starts at 3 p.m. and ends with the
fireworks at 8:30 p.m.
and not in the opposition trenches, and hence
completely underestimating the difficult
path ahead.
The journey from the opposition
trenches to power in government
is arduous most of the times.
Some of the glaring failures within the
coalition government such as in housing,
Kiwibuild, Light-rail, etc had only been
enhancing National’s self-entitled view in
the last term that this election will be for the
government to lose, and not the opposition
to win.
That explains, no serious brainstorm within
the party in the last term, about the future of
political and financial-conservatism in this
country, as it wished to reap the benefits of the
dominance of the so-called Key-English era in
NZ politics.
The party failed to foresee that the country
had very swiftly entered into Jacinda Ardernera
in politics and had neither any appreciation
and nor any plan on how to sail through this
new era of politics.
What Nats had at best offered in this election,
was incessant attacks on the government, which
were often baseless and unsubstantiated, and
a demonstration of an abject lack of political
large-heartedness – something that was
completely antithetical to Jacinda Ardern style
of politics.
An honest acknowledgement of this
seemingly simple, but a glaring error, will
allow the party an honest introspection and put
it quickly on a path to recovery and possibly
road to power sooner, than what may appear
from the latest electoral drubbing.