There is one story Kiran Segal returns to when talking about her mother, Zohra Sehgal. It involves a burkha, a pair of scissors and, eventually, a couple of petticoats. “When she was given a burkha, the first thing she did was cut it up and make petticoats out of it,” Kiran recalls. It is the kind of story that, for her, captures Sehgal better than any long list of awards or film credits could. “She was such a firebrand and lived life on her terms,” adds Kiran, who organises a festival in her mother’s name every year.The 10th Zohra Sehgal Festival of the Arts, to be held at Triveni Kala Sangam on September 27, will also mark what would have been her 114th birth anniversary. Entry is free and the programme is deliberately broad: dance, percussion, classical music, a film screening and songs of protest, with several younger performers taking the stage.For Kiran, an Odissi classical dancer, who started the festival to keep her mother’s memory alive, the choice of programming is also a way of ensuring that Sehgal’s legacy does not become a static tribute. She married Kameshwar Sehgal in the early 1940s at a time when communal tensions were running high. Their registered marriage took place in Allahabad, and only one relative from her father’s side turned up for it. “There are not many women who have had the guts to do all that she did,” says Kiran of her mother.The festival opens with an audio-visual presentation put together by Kiran, tracing Zohra’s life from the age of three to her death at 102. She has brought together photographs, recordings of her reciting poetry, interviews, recollections by others, and clips from her work in theatre, television and cinema. Sehgal’s career stretched from her years as a dancer with Uday Shankar’s troupe to her work with Prithvi Theatre and IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association), and later to films and television in India and Britain. She appeared in The Jewel in the Crown, Bhaji on the Beach, Dil Se, Cheeni Kum and, at 90, Bend It Like Beckham.It is fitting, then, that Bend It Like Beckham will follow the presentation. Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 film, in which Sehgal plays the grandmother, is centred on a young Indian woman who wants to play football despite her conservative family’s objections. Kiran describes it simply as an enjoyable film, but the pairing with the life retrospective offers an easy way for younger audiences to encounter Sehgal — first through the character they may recognise, and then through the woman behind it. On Zohra Sehgal’s 100th birthday in 2012, where Kiran Sehgal launched Fatty, a book on her mother’s lifeThe morning moves from Swara Dhruti, a group led by composer? Saroj Mohanty, to a Mardala solo (percussion instrument native to Odisha) by Namrata Dave and Seraikela Chhau (masked dance from Jharkhand) by Govind Mahato. Mahato is an established practitioner of the Seraikela style of Chhau, a form with strong martial and theatrical roots. This will be followed by a Manipuri presentation by the group of Theba Devi before tabla player Zargham Akram Khan takes up the percussion.Story continues below this adThere will also be a succession of classical dance traditions, but with a conscious emphasis on younger performers. Therefore, disciples of Bharati Shivaji, Shovana Narayan and Swapnasundari will perform. Kiran’s own group will present a creative dance presentation combining Tagore and jazz. In the arrangement, Tagore’s melody remains intact while jazz enters through the interludes. “It’s a very interesting combination. Traditional Bengalis may or may not approve,” she says.ALSO READ | Zohra Sehgal thought she was ‘ugly’ and not sexy, yet taught us how to live life: ‘She tried hard to attract attention’The final stretch moves into Hindustani classical music with young vocalist Sandeep Mohanty, whom Kiran calls “a star on the Hindustani vocal horizon”. The festival closes with Rabigeetika, led by Jayati Ghosh, performing songs of protest from Bengal.Sehgal, Kiran believes, would have enjoyed the attention enormously. Perhaps that is the most Zohra-like thing about a festival that has now lasted a decade: it refuses to be solemn. It remembers her through photographs and films, but also through young dancers, percussionists, singers and performers taking over a stage for a few minutes before handing it to the next person.A whole day of Zohra Sehgal then, much like the woman herself, a little unruly, very busy and unlikely to sit quietly in one corner.