There were linguists and language artists from continents like Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Australia, and all the states and union territories of India.

On the second and final day of the meet today, the delegates travelled to orgniser BRPC’s Adivasi Academy in Tejgadh, 130 km from Vadodara, in Pavi Jetpur taluka.

Traveling in a bus, A G Arumugam, a language activist from Tamil Nadu, complained of temperature being too low while Amberwar Gogoi, a lecturer from Assam University, remarked, “The area is so dry. You know, Assam is an all-green state.” This was despite the fact that tribal Pavi Jetpur taluka is among the greenest in Gujarat!

Once the delegates reached Achhala village, they could not hold themselves back from joining the villagers in folk dance as beats of dhol, shehnai and nagari (a small drum) and celebratory voices of tribal reverberated in the otherwise calm environs of the small village.

At the Hanuman temple near the hillock, Garjan Malik, a school teacher from Darjeeling district of West Bengal, drew a small crowd by playing on his Passingkodotra, a stringed musical instrument of his tribe Dimal.

As he completed a song, an elderly gentlemen from Odisha expressed the wish to sing and asked Malik to accompany him. The latter obliged and the duo sang and danced for 10 minutes as the small audience clapped in rhythm.

For many, the event provided them a platform to meet like-minded people. “I got to know many people, many teachers from so many universities. It was fantastic to know about so many languages from one platform,” said Peter Keegan, a lecturer at University of Aukland, New Zealand, adding he liked Vadodara very much and would like to visit again.