LUCKNOW, Jan. 31 -- Celebrating the shared cultural legacy of Lucknow and Kolkata, the Mahindra Sanatkada Lucknow Festival (MSLF) began at Raja Ram Pal Singh Park here on Friday. The festival, themed 'Raabta Lucknow Calcutta Ka', opened with a stirring dhak performance by Gokuldas and his team of 12 women dhakis, blending Bengal's rhythmic tradition with Awadhi evening aesthetics. Another attraction of the day was a kathak performance by Shurti Ghosh, a Kolkata-based artiste who narrated the story of kathak and Wajid Ali Shah in Matiyaburj (in Kolkata). She, through narration, poetry rendition and music composed by nawabs, spoke about the connection between Lucknow and Kolkata. "I learnt Kathak when I was five years old. My father was a tabla player from Jaipur Gharana. However, it was in 2019 when I was a dance teacher in Kazakhstan that I realised that whenever I wanted to write about mini-Lucknow in Kolkata, I was only left with a few anecdotes related to nawabs, biryani and Matiyaburj. However, we did not know many good things about Matiyaburj and Khedipur, which is adjacent to Matiyaburj, as both the places were considered crime hotspots," said Ghosh. She shared that she visited Majiyaburj with a friend like a tourist. "I understood that Matiyaburj was a more layered and complex place. There were thousands of dance institutions but they did not have students from Matiyaburj. Knowing that Lucknow is a key centre for kathak, I wanted to learn more about courtesans and their life after the death of nawabs," added Ghosh. She said that even though Matiyaburj was one of the major manufacturing units it was seen in a bad light after the murder of DCP Vinod Mehta. "It is the need of the hour to bring out how Matiyaburj is more than what people think of it. The contemporary Kolkata that resides in Matiyaburj today must be shown," she added. Anuja Sharma, the daughter of Indira Mahindra, was present on the occasion. She said that the theme of the festival is connected to her parents because both of them were raised in Lucknow and Kolkata. Later in the evening, the Murshidabad Project depicted seven stages of love with the help of 'shayaris' and 'ghazals'....