Building another world, announced banners festooned near the entrance of Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. "Yahan mela laga hai kya? (is there a carnival underway here?),' the auto-rickshaw driver asked, as I asked him to stop his vehicles near one of the banners. No, this is the Indian Social Forum (isf), I answered as I paid him. Anyhow, my words were drowned by the drumbeats of a group of brightly clothed people lampooning the corruption-ridden Indian state.

The mood of festivity at isf soon overtook me. The Indian chapter of the World Social Forum ( wsf) was going to be a five-day affair: November 9-November13, 2006. And I was barely in time for the opening.

As I ambled into the exhibition grounds at Nehru Stadium, a passerby remarked, "Oh, these na