Party, interrupted

Organisers go underground as India’s first trance festival ends in disarray and controversy

With Mallvika Nanda & Siddhartha S. Bose
India’s biggest rave was busted two days before its scheduled end, when the poilce raided the party early Monday morning on the outskirts of Jaipur. Touted as the first festival of its kind in India, Moon Dust, according to the organisers, was supposed to host India’s finest psytrance talent alongside some of the world’s most respected and sought-after artistes. The festival, that began on November 3 and was scheduled to go on till November 7 in the forest area near the famous Ramgarh Dam around 40 km from Jaipur, had attracted a huge number of music lovers from all over the country — Bangalore, Ludhiana, Mumbai and Ahmedabad — as well as Dubai. But the party was raided early Monday morning and several police cases registered against the organisers who are now underground.
Superintendent of Police (rural), Anil Paliwal said: “The organisers have been framed under the Foreign Act that specifies registration of foreign citizens coming to the city. Cases have also been registered under the Noise Control Act,” he said. Under the Foreign Act, putting up of a foreign citizen in the city calls for a tourist’s registration with the local police, a formality apparently not observed in this case. Reports suggest that most of the festival’s 3,000 participants were foreigners, many of whom made it to the rave from from Pushkar, Manali and Goa.
Police are trying to trace the event’s main organiser in Jaipur, Kulbhushan Paliwal. And the violation of excise laws and the noise pollution near a forest area has also forced the Jaipur district administration to order a probe, said Additional District Magistrate (Jaipur city north) DN Pandey. Apparently, villagers had also complained about the rendezvous, which had high-watt speakers blaring into the night.
Says Delhi’s Saurav Chaddha: “The idea was fantastic but it wasn’t executed well. We didn’t get encouraging reviews from people inside, so we decided to leave soon. Everything at the venue was heavily priced.” He adds that the disaster (read bust) was imminent as the festival had attracted a huge crowd, mostly foreigners, who “naturally didn’t function according to the Indian mindset”.
Incidentally, when the police raided the site on November 6, the picture was that of a place abandoned in haste, with scattered beer bottles, cigarettes and hookahs strewn around. With entry tickets priced at around Rs 2,500 per head, those who turned up at the site were angered by the festival’s untimely closure. Some ticket holders were even thinking of demanding a refund.
Indraneel Dasgupta, who had just about entered the Moon Dust campus when it all ended, says: “The organisers got to know about the raid 40 minutes before the officials arrived and hence were found missing from the scene. However, people who had spent huge money on accommodation were disappointed.”
A Delhi-based DJ, scheduled to perform at Moon Dust, pulled out at the last moment. “I got in touch with the organisers over the Internet and quite a few of my foreign friends were also scheduled to play there. I suspected something fishy and, therefore, withdrew,” he says.
The “festival” was heavily publicised through Orkut and other social networking websites.