Hello everyone,
Today I visited the Centre for traditional arts and crafts Manali. This place is yet to be opened to general public. As I’m a resident of Manali, I could get in this amazing place and show you guys the first ever look of this place. This is the first post on Internet about this place so it’s very special for me as well as this place.
I entered this place around 7 AM when I was walking by this place as my usual morning walk routine. Everyday I used to pass by this place curious to when this will open?
Today I couldn’t resist the sunrise that I was seeing through the gate so I decided to get in.
The gate was locked. In fact every gate in all the directions were locked. I tried to find anyone who could get me in and found a watchman. Knowing I am a local, he opened a small gate for me to get in and told me to return after 15 minutes.
15 minutes were all I got. I captured all this photographs in just 15 minutes. I am proud of myself 😅.
This place is really well made. As this is a traditional themed place, all the buildings are made in traditional Himalayan style. The sunrise looked really mesmerising from this place.
Sun rising from Pir Panjal range as captured from Centre for traditional arts and crafts Manali.
The main aim of this place is to preserve our traditional things such as architecture, art, clothes, cultural activities, dance, singing and our folk.
There are many buildings for stalls. These stalls will be selling local traditional Himalayan stuff.
This is a government venture that started construction 5 years ago. It’s almost ready now. In the photograph above you can read the official board that is present there.
About 40cr rupees were spent in creating this amazing place 😮😮😮
After visiting here I can definitely say the money is well spent. All the buildings are made from expensive wood and stones as you can see.
There are many things yet to be done but the glory of this place can be seen just as of now. There wasn’t a single person there apart from me that’s why I was able to capture such secluded photographs of this amazing Himalayan architecture.
You can see the woodwork that is done there in this photograph. All the buildings are the same. I couldn’t get inside these tall buildings as they were locked but I tried to capture what I could.
This was the building I liked the most. And this is the photograph I loved the most 😅
Traditional sunrise as I call it.
I was imagining this place full of crowd as this place will be when it will open for general public. These photographs will be most unique ones after that.
You can definitely see the freshness and tranquility of this place in the photographs. Those 15 minutes made my day today.
I would write another post when this place will open next year. I’ll be covering all the stalls and traditional activities that would be done there.
Later when I was coming out of this place, I asked the watchman what kind of stuff would be sold here. He told me that all the stuff will be made by local people only. The stuff would not be made in factories or mass produced. This is the initiative for which this place is being made. This would definitely strengthen the local community.
My mother is also planning to rent a stall here next year. She will sell homemade pickles here along with some artwork that she makes from pine cones. The stalls are only reserved for local people here.
This place can host over a hundred of such stalls. That’s really great that all the stalls need to be different from one another.
This is the coolest photograph I captured today. Just look at this masterpiece. #photographylovers
This tree added the real vibe to the photograph.
In the photograph below you can see the stage that is meant for traditional performance of local art and dance.
This stage can host over a 5000 people in a gathering.
As I am a musician too I’ll be looking to perform here 😅
It was really a great experience of 15 minutes today. I hope this blog would make your 15 minutes great too.
Thanks for your precious time.