Allahabad: At a time when a sea of humanity is pouring in at the Kumbh Mela to attain spiritual salvation, senior artist from a village in Lucknow also arrived with his troupe in the mega-religious fair for ‘economic moksha’. The folk performers are among other 100 groups who are raking in moolah by performing crowd-puller shows on stages erected at 10 places across the city.The troupes claimed that they have been invited by state culture department to showcase their art to devotees, arriving to take dip in the Sangam. Rajendra and his group have been asked to perform devotional songs but on the heavy demand of audience, they have to perform crowd-puller folk numbers.“Hum logo ko Devi geet aur Prayag ki mahatta par geet gaane ko kaha gaya hai (We have been asked to sing folk Devi song and those based on the importance of Prayagraj). But audience here wants to listen to songs like Gauna karaye lo, Piya say milan ka.. which are based on yearning desires of young newly married couple,” said Kushwaha as he was readying for his next show at a stage erected at Balson Crossing.“Till date we have performed in front of seated audience but for the first time, we are attracting commuters through our performances as all the stages are on crossings. The dancers can easily attract crowd through colourful attire but singers have to bow to the pressure of crowd,” he said.Jeevan Ram from Gazipur who performs Dhobia dance shows the invitation letter issued by the department.The letter from UP, cultural department is addressed to individual troupe promises them uchit mandey (appropriate remuneration) for all the shows performed on the stages. The amount has not been revealed by the government.

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