Pune festival kicks off

PUNE:
The 11th Pune festival got off to a glittering start on Saturday night with Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, ‘Dream Girl’ of yesteryears Hema Malini along with her daughter Esha and a galaxy of other personalities enlivening the show. Sporting a red Puneri pagdi and a white shervani, Bachchan touched an instant personal chord with (the audience when he said it was in Pune that he had proposed to Jaya when she was studying in the Film and Television Institute of India. Bachchan lauded the organisers for taking the Ganesh festival beyond the frontiers of Maharashtra.
Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the Pune Festival, declared the city the destination of the 21st century and promised that the festival in the year 2000 would be even more grandiose.
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