SECOND COMING: Sethi with the Bamiyan Buddhas pavilion behind him

Undeterred by the humidity and heat, almost 1.3 million people took part in the fortnight-long Smithsonian Folklife Festival which ended recently at the Mall in Washington. In the process, the crowds-the largest for any Smithsonian event-stamped their approval on what was, by all accounts, a first-time effort at design-led entrepreneurship by India, which included a series of temporary edifices erected to recreate the ancient Silk Road from Europe to the Far East.

Giant gateways resembling silk looms, evoking the great gate of the Todaiji Temple in Nara, Japan; the Bell Tower of Xi'an, China; the Registan Square of Samarkand; the Aya Sofia of Istanbul; and the Basilica of San Marcos in Venice formed the contours of the exhibition, spread over 20 acres of the picturesque Washington Mall. The pathways between these edifices were lined with platforms and venues where people could listen to music, watch demonstrations of bodily, culinary and decorative arts, eat diverse dishes and join in myriad acts of cultural discovery.

ONE WORLD: Craftspersons from Andhra Pradesh, exposed to the Japanese shibori, worked on the paper garden

The festival was designed and implemented by the Delhi-based Asian Heritage Foundation. It was the first time in the festival's 36-year-history that the responsibility for curatorial site design and production was entrusted to a non-Smithsonian entity, that too to someone from outside the United States. Rajeev Sethi, head of the foundation and the festival's scenographer, was delighted at the response. He now plans to hold a similar exposition in Delhi. The objective: to overcome the cultural disconnect that has emerged among the South Asian countries unlike what had existed centuries ago.

ACQUIRED ART: Ikats from Uzbekistan were emulated on the looms of Bihar and mounted as decorative canvas fencing

"This way we will be able to interface with our neighbours. At the moment, it is not so porous as when the Silk Route happened. The festival was not just an evocative exposition of an exotic past but the first pan-Asian gathering of contemporary Asia and the diaspora," explains Sethi.

The festival drew a large number of celebrities including Secretary of State Colin Powell, World Bank President James Wolfensohn and renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma, who also conceived its concept.

The final word on the festival duly went to Sethi, who said, "If we learn from history then we will not be condemned to repeat it. The Silk Route was the first form of globalisation and a major step for humankind. It has important messages for today."

-Anil Padmanabhan