It is wonderful to return to South Korea, after more than a decade. Korea is a full-on sensory party, with your eyes, ears, tongue and other senses tingling with all kinds of wonders you had no idea about. How often does that happen to you in today's Google-flattened world? Earlier, as my flight to Incheon, Seoul, was via Singapore, I went to visit the Butterfly Garden at Changi airport, but it was "closed for repairs." I could picture a lady, patiently repairing butterfly wings, as a long queue of butterflies awaited their turn.

I had visited the Busan International Film Festival in Korea many times earlier, as their Consultant for Indian cinema. But this time I'm attending the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival. It's in a charming town, three hours from Seoul, and straight out of a Korean landscape painting, set by Cheongpung Lake, nestling amid rolling green hills. I've been invited to give a lecture-demonstration on what I call "The Flowering Tree of Indian Cinema's Song and Dance." It is part of a larger programme of Indian cinema, Thousand Faces of Indian Music and Film, curated by Suan Seol, for which I was consultant. The Indian films here include Sanjay Leela Bhansali's exquisite Bajirao Mastani, Mani Ratnam's Kaatru Veliyidai, and documentaries including the lovely Up, Down and Sideways by Iswar Srikumar and Anushka Meenakshi.