London, Sept 13: A peacock-shaped Bengal boat, embellished with 1.25 lakh miniature bulbs, will be the cynosure of all eyes at the two-day London Mayor's Thames Festival beginning today on the Victoria embankment here. Symbolising the close cultural ties between Kolkata and London, the seven-metre long Bengal boat, specially shipped here from Chandernagore in West Bengal, will head the 1.6 km long procession of lights which climaxes the Mayor's annual Thames Festival on Sunday.
This year's procession is called 'midnight menagerie' and involves 50 artists working with 2,000 participants, many of them children, to create a spectacle of music, dance, lanterns and costumes. "A highpoint will be 'Din Shuru' (starting the day), an Indian carnival, with a seven-metre long ornamental boat - 'Bajra' (pleasure boat) - made entirely of light bulbs as a centrepiece, which has been brought over from West Bengal to London," Simon Hughes, MP, chairman of the Thames Festival trust told newsmen. Bureau Report