Kozhikode has been having great time for the last one month with Malabar Shopping Fest, an unparalleled entertainment extravaganza in the recent history, rocking the city.
With the theme of “regaining the lost glory of Malabar”, festival was a period when lot of people in and around the district and across the region took to their city to take part in the festivities. Although ‘regaining the glory’ may be a little far fetched with a single shopping festival, in the long term, this festival could really mark a major plus for the city of Calicut and Malabar as a whole. Surely, it has been organised and conducted, in a manner deserving commendation.
From Dec 20 to Jan 20, later extended up to Jan 31st, people of Calicut and its surrounding districts thoroughly enjoyed all that was offered by this truly remarkable event. The festival was set to coincide with the occassions of the 50th anniversary of Kerala & 140th anniversary of Corporation of Kozhikode. Some drew similarities with the famed Dubai shopping festival (DSF). DSF is quiet different and organised in a much larger scale. People from all over the world visit a leading business centre city such as Dubai but who knows in future the shopping festival of Malabar would not draw crowd on par with the DSF in a changing India?
With a grand inaugural function, Trade Fair, Helicopter Ride, Water Sports, Cyber Games, Bungee Jumping, Street Entertainments, Lucky Draws, Halwa Fest, Festivities in the beach, Obstacle Courses, Entertainments, Aqua Fest (Matsyalankar), Amusements, Magic illusions, International Book Fair, Snow Park, Health Seminar, Magic World, Mass Run, Business Seminars, Food Festival, Film Festival, Drama Fest, Malabar Quiz, City Tour Packages, and Treasure Hunt were some of the major events organised across the city. City was illuminated and an audio system was established with extensions across the city.
The Malabar Shopping Fest (MSF) aimed to showcase the unexplored potentials of this part of the state. It is now in its last phase with “Malabar mahothsav” – the annual fest which will continue till the end of January. Malabar couldn’t find any major prominence in the tourism map though it has a lot of places of interest but still unexplored or not exposed to the public notice. The MSF was actually a hope to give these sectors the needed push, and the extent of success will soon be clear but it is sure the hard work won’t go waste. Though the overall result is yet to be seen, the individual events of the fest has surely achieved the aim for which it was organized.
With this summary, we wish to take you through a brief on some of the major events that have taken place as part of the Malabar shopping festival.
