bhopal the presence of eminent artistes during the recently concluded 36th foundation day celebrations at the bharat bhavan has raised hopes that the multiarts complex may once again become a centre of excellence in arts and culture eminent personalities such as sonal mansingh nadira babbar ashish vidyarthi jayant deshmukh ragini chandrashekhar and a host of others were present during the foundation day ceremonybharat bhavan has been reduced to bhopal bhavan in the recent past with a plethora of performances mostly by local artistes but indifference of the trust entrusted to govern the institution continues to be a cause of serious concernmadan soni the former chief administrative officer of bharat bhavan who had been associated with the multiarts complex right from its inception said the institute is now referred to as bhopal bhavan mainly because it has deviated from its vision and the dysfunctional trust is a reason for its declinethe trust was abolished in 2011 and after so many years it has been recently reconstituted with padma subramanyam as its chairperson an institute of national eminence should have the right kind of people to govern its activities and keep it in good shape the trust in its initial days had people like swaminathan bv karant habib tanveer and ashok vajpayee the institute had a different kind of aura about it soni saidthe fact that even after the reconstitution of the trust in november the website of bharat bhavan has not yet been updated and information about its members are not available only goes to show the sad state of affairs at the multiarts complex incumbent chief administrative officer prem shankar shukla however disagreed with the perception that local artistes were getting too much exposure at bharat bhavan the institute belongs to the whole country and only 30 of the total performances at bharat bhavan are from artistes of madhya pradseh shukla saidif we give importance to local artistes we are told national artistes are not being given a chance to perform here and if we call national artistes we are accused of not encouraging the locals it is a very difficult situation for us but we try our best to maintain a balance shukla saidbansi kaul an eminent theatre personality who has worked with bharat bhavan extensively in the past said that one cannot expect an institute to function in the same way all the time there will be ups and downs no matter even if you have a glorious past there are many institutes that have strayed from their basic vision and bharat bhavan is no exception said kaul