India, Nov. 16 -- Come November and the tricity including Corbusier's Chandigarh along with adjoining New Chandigarh have been buzzing with cultural activity like never before. The range has been varied and vibrant, leaving art scribes like me in a tizzy recall the rare retro qawwali from the great musical era of Hindi cinema, penned by Shakeel Badayuni and set to music by none other than Naushad Sahib. It went thus 'Main idhar jaoon ya udhar jaoon?' (Should I go hither or should I go thither). The tempting fare this fall included for the first time in the city 'Ismat Aapa ke Naam' which included short stories by the one-of-her-hind storyteller of Urdu enacted by the legendary, Ismat Chughtai, enacted by Naseeruddin Shah and his family including Ratna Pathak and Heeba Shah but since it was hosted by a cancer trust the tickets were exorbitant. So one held back the temptation to sell a gold ring and make it there somehow but one consoled the heart thinking that I had seen some of these tales enacted by the wonderful artists several years ago at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. But what cheered the heart to learn to know that it went housefull. Good to know that our has come both of age and money and no longer a city built after the great divide to compensate for the loss of Lahore and plots given to migrants of partition for small sums. Of course, such was the city that one was born to in its early years and it was here one grew up enjoying its artificial lake, its wide roads, fresh air as one slept on the roof tops, picnicked at the Mansa Devi temple and occasionally went to the Mughal gardens of Pinjore for a feast of Langra and Dussehri mangoes. One went to school in sharing the seat with other friends in Saharanpuri rickshaws and till college and university times cars were few and mostly small Fiats and bloated Ambassadors. It took the Green Revolution and exchange of property allotted to migrants changing hands to be with the affluent Jat farmers. And today property in our city is among the costliest in the country and even abroad. The Mansa Devi area was developed and now proudly named Sector 13 because the number was no longer auspicious for money and spells out the status of a given place and no one denies that it also enhances cultural activity. This is not to say that the early settlers did not make a big effort to introduce theatre and other arts with stalwart professors like Virender Mendiratta and Naveen Thakur introducing Hindi and English theatre to the city colleges. To our pride, our elder cousin Kamla Dutt, a science student, was one of the first two city women students to act on the stage. I also recall the Nehru Park mushairas in Sector 23 where I accompanied my mother and sisters as a child. At one such mushaira, a young talent from Batala in Punjab surprising everyone with his poetry which he sang soulfully. He was to become the much loved poet and the youngest poet from Punjab to receive the National Sahitya Akademi Award for his epic 'Loona'. He was later to become very much a part of the city as his talent was given an honourary post in the city's branch of the State Bank of India and go onto write songs sung blue like 'Ki puchade ho haal fakiran da' and 'Ik kurhi jihda naam mohabbat'. For long the now deserted Kiran Cinema was the only movie hall in the city.I can still recall seeing 'Mughal-e-Azam' there a number of times with my mother and sister-in-law and weeping each time I saw the beautiful Madhubala being chained and put behind bars for loving Prince Saleem! Well slowly people kept coming to our city and the caravan kept moving on and now the city has come of age. It was a delightful evening for the city literati, especially the younger ones, with Instagram star Mujtaba Khan recounting the way of life that accompanied the birth of the Urdu language on the Indian soil and the composite culture that accompanied it. He brought forth forgotten memories of the grandmother's pandaan (betel leaf box), finesse of marriage proposals by telling tales and unravelling the making of Urdu poetry in ghazal and nazam. An engineer and lawyer by education, he turned to the valley of words in an attempt to reach to his own roots and search the significance of belonging and identity in contemporary times. Khan was in the city on the invitation of Elsewhere Foundation, founded in the memory of playwright and storyteller par excellence Swadesh Deepak. For Urdu enthusiast Mujtaba Khan, whose page 'Sabr Se' is a major hit on Instagram, the Urdu poetry, qissas, and tales from Rampur which he recites are in fact an attempt to reconnect with his roots and make sense of contemporary times. The storyteller who is so fond of talking of his granny's long-lost pandaan will soon be releasing a book titled 'Pandaan' besides an OTT series he is penning. "The evening was dedicated to listeners who wished to acquaint themselves with Urdu and its way of reaching out, " said Nagina Singh, co-founder of the foundation with Sukant Deepak. Moving from the old times to the new, Saturday morning one witnessed a young girl, Yashaswani Singh, who has just entered the 18th year celebrating her entry into the adult world by launching her book titled Petals 18 on 18. Having just completed school at the city's Sacred Heart Convent, she has showcased her poems which she started writing from Class 6 onward. Remembering the years gone by when publishing a book early was a psychological and societal block. Seeing the gen next doing so is indeed heartwarming. The fresh words and innocent encounters touch the heart and make us peep into the world of the growing girl embellished with dreams, innocence and positivity. The young poet says: "My book is not about perfection, it sings the melody of growth. Each poem is a petal, part of a bloom that is still unfolding." Atta girl, carry on scattering petals!...