EARLY DIWALI CELEBRATIONS...

Refer to this old post of mine... http://nikhilraikar.blogspot.com/2007/06/power-of-indian-diaspora-couple-of.html

I moved to Cary in March 2007 and soon got a taste of the large number of Indians in this area... Gradually, we got to know a few of them and became good friends... Soon, we realized that this place is virtually a mini-India... There are so many Indians here that all the festivals are celebrated and each one in a grand manner... Ganpati, Navratri, Dussera, Pongal -- all of them are celebrated with equal pomp and festivity... On Independence Day, there was a grand parade for more than 2 miles and then flag hoisting ceremony followed by many cultural programmes and great food...

There are atleast 3 temples that I know of, all in the vicinity of a mile... Atleast 10-15 Indian grocery stores and 10-15 Indian restaurants which serve any cuisine from India... Chats, Biryanis, Dosas, Punjabi, Indo-Chinese, Fish, even Desi Pizza and Gobi Manchurian -- anything that u want is served...

So, now you will ask whats so special abt this -- probably this may be happening in NJ, CA or any other US state... well, here is the biggest one of em all... the killer...

There is a flip side to this abundance of Indian diaspora... With so many ppl from each state / language, there are more than enough numbers to establish their own associations... There is a Greater Carolina Kerala Association, North Carolina Bengali Association, RTP Maharashtra Mandal, Tamil Cultural Association of NC, Triangle Kannada Association, Triangle Orissa Association, Telugu Association of Triangle Area and umpteen other organizations who do not choose to reveal their state / linguistic affiliations... There are no Indians any more -- its all regional and lingustic groups...

On 13th October 2007, the town of Cary celebrated Cary Diwali Festival... Its an annual event and usually is celebrated some time before the actual Diwali festival... The organizers invite entries from locals who are interested in performing cultural group activities... The condition is that the groups should be atleast 10 members or more... They received a whopping 150 odd entries for their auditions... After 2 days of auditions, they short listed 50 odd teams for the actual day...

On the day of the event, the festivities began at 10 am and went until 9 pm... Performances varied from Garba to Bhangra, Kathak to Tabla, Koli dance to a hip-hop performance and Patriotic medley and a dance on Rajnikanth's song from Sivaji movie... There was even a dance performed by an all-american girl team (they performed on a hindi song from movie Khakee) and everyone said that they were the best group of dance on the day... After these dances were done, Band of Boys were there to sing and dance for the next 2 hours... All this ended with one of the best fireworks I have ever seen... One heck of a day it was...

But, the best part of this whole day is what follows --

My wife was a part of the performing team who performed on a medley of patriotic songs... their dance ended with a formation of the Indian flag -- There were more than 12000 ppl present for the show and they all gave a standing ovation at the end of their performance... For once, there were no Bengalis or Punjabis or Tamilians or Mallus or South Indians or North Indians, it was just an army of Indians saluting their national flag...

Here's a link to their performance...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8538430597301042046&hl=en

This moment was the best moment of the day for me... I wont forget it ever in my life... For me, Diwali was celebrated one month earlier... This was the best Diwali of my life...