3D street art, cooking workshops at this year's Kala Ghoda festival

The paver blocks at Rampart Row in Kala Ghoda will soon get a three-dimensional life.

The paver blocks at Rampart Row in Kala Ghoda will soon get a three-dimensional life.

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The road will get a makeover with bright colours in chalk when American artist Tracy Lee Stum will create street art as part of the 14th annual Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in February. The nine-day festival will begin on February 4.

Stum, who holds a Guinness World Record for the largest chalk painting, will use chalk pastels and tempera paints to create an illusionary two-dimensional image that will appear to be three-dimensional when viewed from a specific point.

"The street visual art will be created during the last few days of the festival. Visitors can catch a glimpse of Tracy in action," said Pallavi Sharma, chief executive officer, Kala Ghoda Association.

This year, the art and culture festival is also introducing a new culinary arts section, wherein the country's popular chefs will conduct cooking workshops. "Since it is the first time that we have introduced this section, we have made pre-registrations compulsory for all interested participants," said Sharma, adding that the workshops would be free.

Other highlights of the festival include a performance by British Tamil musician Susheela Raman and a Sitar performance by Niladri Kumar.

Even this year, the organisers have decided to keep the decibel levels low by avoiding loudspeakers and amplifiers. "We will not have any music events at Rampart Row. The street will host the regional folk art events, which will not inconvenience the residents," said Sharma.

However, a few residents said that last year the organisers had violated the high court order on maintaining the permissible decibel levels at Rampart Row, a silence zone. "They used percussion instruments and the sound exceeded the permissible limit," said resident Berges Malu.

"Nobody complained to us. We followed the conditions laid down by the BMC," said Maneck Davar, honourary chairperson, Kala Ghoda Association.