Vadodara: Miffed at messed-up venue, reveller pelts stone at famed folk singer

During his reign as the most popular and respected garba singer in the city spanning decades now, prominent artist Atul Purohit was used to getting bouquets thrown at him after every performance.

But a pebble thrown by some garba reveller at him on Tuesday night at the United Way Garba venue left him shell-shocked.

It is probably a first in the city's garba history that an artist was targeted during Navratri, and that too, over poor ground surface at the venue!

The incident occurred in the second half of garba programme when Purohit had just begun to sing. Suddenly, frustrated revellers, angry over the poor ground carpeted with stones and pebbles for the second consecutive night, stopped playing garba and began to gherao the stage to register their protest.

In the meanwhile, several revellers were also seen limping and leaving the venue midway.

Programme was stopped and the United Way management urged the revellers to get back to playing garba, but the revellers refused to budge.

They started demanding refund of the fees they paid for entry passes. 

Such was the resentment, that the crowd even hooted at the Manjalpur police inspector who had come on stage to pacify the crowd but talked in an unpleasant tone.

However, Purohit took to the stage to control the irate crowd and placated them by saying