May I vent? On Sunday I went to the India Day celebration in New York. It was my first one since moving here, after years in a smaller city where there wasn’t much commemoration. Riding the subway downtown I was quite excited. I was also upset that I didn’t have a camera. I wanted to document the event for the mutineers to share in the party. I was annoyed that I’d have to find someone else’s blog or Flickr page to show you images of the day.
So I get down to 28th Street and start walking south on Madison Avenue. The street is empty. That’s OK, I can see the party a couple of blocks ahead. It looks small… but compact, right? Besides, it must spill out onto the side streets that I can’t see from here.
Aha! Here we go. Booths, stands, displays. I’m ready to get my culture on. I’m hoping for musicians, arts organizations, political groups of all stripes, regional and ethnic groups, maybe some cool vendors…
And what do I get?
Shaadi.com
BharatMatrimony
State Bank of India
Direct TV
Satellite TV channel #1
Satellite TV channel #2
Insurance agency
Another bank
… and that’s about it.
I mean, this was pathetic. Pathetic! India Day, commemoration of 59 years of Independence and all that, aunties walking around in tricolor saris, kids with face paint, and almost every single organized presence is hawking middle-class consumer services.
The exception was a bone marrow drive, but even that was being promoted by brothers from a desi fraternity. I’m not hating, especially not on bone marrow drives, but the frat-boy flavor certainly didn’t bring any cultural diversity to the event.
Yeah, there was a stage with performances. Just one stage, and the little I saw was, eh… just OK.
And yeah, I missed the parade. I’d been told to watch for the floats. Well, here’s a brother who took pictures: Corporate flatbeds rolling by empty sidewalks. A few Republican politicians.
The most flavor at the entire event was the Hare Krishnas.
Is it always this way?
The Pakistan day parade is waaaay better 😉
…and it’s being held this coming Sunday at the same site, which makes ideal research conditions for comparison. I’m thinking of checking it out, actually. Any readers going, drop me a line.
This year the parade seemed a little shorter to me, and much less diverse. In years past, I’ve seen marchers from SALGA NYC, Nonresident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India, and other such groups.
I’ve heard. If I was in town this weekend, I would have checked it out.
The only reason to ever go to the India Day Parade is for the YSS protests, which are always fun.
Last year, DesiDancer was part of the stage performance. And A.R. Rahman was there (I guess roughly in conjunction with “Bombay Dreams”?)
But yeah, the rest of it was pretty shabby.
some v prety b@bes in the crowd….althugh generally a dissapointing event.
Yes, the Pakistan Day Parade is always better. I usually get calls from friends saying “what’s up with all the Indian people on 5th Avenue?” during that parade.
But also, parades aside, street fairs/celebrations in NYC are notoriously terrible. Even the famous San Gennaro festival in “Little Italy” has devolved into stalls selling fried Oreo cookies and the like.
True. Last year Desi Dancer was the only good thing about it, and I missed seeing her. Go figure.
I like these photos in sequence. First, second, third 😉
tamasha, i hear you, sistren, but you should come uptown. i went to the harlem celebrations on 135 both saturday and sunday and it was fantastic.
Ha, i went, it was a sad state of affairs. Based on the corporate sponsors, you think Indian people are interested only in getting hitched, than watching TV, nay, Satellite TV (nothing but the best for us brown people) and saving money… hum… wait.. 😉
True. I should change my “NYC” to Manhattan-below-96th-Street.
Now if you want to see a Parade…
BrooklynBrown (#4):
teehee, my arm is in that picture
there is a fraternity for brown people?
Aaahhh, tamasha, you beat me to it. I completely agree; the West India Day parade is one of the coolest in the city.
yes. they are annoying
Whaddaya think this blog is ? 😉
Okay, maybe that’s partly because some of us are disruptive elements who are here to badmaashify things up a little…..
I share this opinion, but it’s no limited to just the brown ones. Why single anyone out?
yes
bollywood actress bipisha basu was the grand marshall of the parade. she arrived like 2 hours late ans missed the parade. she came at the end and went up to the stage and said that the men in the car harassed her. while giving this speech in front of like 10000 people the men in the car (the organizers of the parade)tried to shut her up. Many think that this is just a publicity stunt because she did not contact the police after this happened or while it happened.
oh it doesnt have to be that way.
we had a ‘festival of southasia’ in toronto this past weekend. as the name suggests – it was an indo-pak thing.
There’s a little bit of coverage here.
I attended the saturday session and pigged out on dhokla, chaat and cholley… before spending the rest of the evening watching a bollytunes perfomance before moving to lahor tika house to catch a spot of qawwali. quite a bit of fun yaar. Wish you were there. the highlight was a very aggressive dandia dance … to some rather earthy song that this kid belted out with a lot of gusto. i was quite pleased.
the next day you had more traditional dance recitals – bharatnatyam, odissi. etc.
then there were the non-choreographed highlights that add a lot of flavor to the event – like standing behind a couple of pakistani hotbloods in front of the stage waiting for shit to happen – i was grinnign in anticipation of a scrap 🙂 but didnt happen – or behind this iranian girl with plucked eyebrows who seemed to be very much a fan of bolly tunes, she seemed to be lipsynching to whatever the singer was singing – and this bangla woman with red teeth, the girth and bearing of a butcher, handing out verbal smackdowns to anyone and all… and they all took it in stride even as they waited for her chaat… etc etc.
you had to be there.
This was at the parade in Edison, NJ on the 13th, not the parade in NYC on the 20th. More on that incident.
India Day in Portland, Oregon was also a dissappointing experience. Usually, my friends and I stick around for the fashion show– we just left early and went down the street to Rockbottom’s. How sad and embarrassing.
Now this
is what we need.
They are the only frat boys I have ever really interacted with. Not trying to single them out or anything.
On another note, did anyone see the “World Cahmpions of Theen Pathi” float? It was fully of mostly wh!te h00chies shaking it. a bit odd.
Shucks, Ennis & Amardeep 🙂 I heard the BAx company didn’t perform this year, which is a bummer because they really draw a crowd well. The Sikh parade down 7th Ave in the mid-spring is another good one.
A sucky parade is better than no parade, which is what we got here… 🙁 The big parade here was me marching solo with my tri-color, scaring the neighbors and spitting paan into their flowerbeds…
The Secret Sardar and Professor Pyaar always know how to smooth-talk the laydeez…..
Did you check out the after parties. I couldnt go this year but those are always fun with some artist or the other.
couldnt agree more.
Our Sikh parades are good too which go from Broadway to 23rd madison for Baisakhi. Atleast you get free food! people are seen filling up their bags with all the goodies
Yes, and my friends and I agreed that they couldn’t have had desi girls in shorts and tank tops on the float because it would have offended a lot of people’s sensibilities.
oh hairy d–i was at the festival in TO this saturday as well.. 🙂 the highlight was finding MANGOOSTEENS 🙂
and a sucky parade is certainly better than the multiple parade schism-spectactles that used to prevail just about every year….
DD, i must say — a triumphant return to NYC would have been the perfect platform to kick off your campaign…. still time for you to crash the pakistan day parade — just think of all the joementum you’d gain by declaring yourself an “independent Indian,” not beholden to any particular national origin…. wait, on second thought, maybe that’s not the right campaign slogan for you.
because wh!te w0men are supposed to be $ex 0bjects with no personalities. they do that kind of thing. good indian girls only study classical music, learn to cook dosas and do their homework.
welcome to Truntoo, garbanzo!!!
yer quite the traveller, eh? a rolling bean gathers no humoss.
The most flavor at the entire event was the Hare Krishnas.
Hehe.
I’m not a big fan of parades myself, period. (Except for Chariots! But that almost doens’t count b/c you’re in in the parade. So I’m not a big fan of watching parades.) I haven’t been to an Indian Independance day celebration in years, but the ones I danced at in Fremont were great. Lots and lots of kids dancing and singing and playing tabla and other instruments, which to me is a really great expression of community. Representation from community groups like Narika. The vendors then were mainly local and selling fun stuff and plenty of books, so they were great too. No idea what it’s like now.
While there I also ran down the block to meet The Bean so as we could partake in the “parade” that is Chinatown on a Saturday afternoon and let me tell you, she loves those mangosteens! 🙂
ahhh yes.. I GOT TO MEET MISS NEHA :)…and wish her a happy bday in persona ;)…good to meet you albeit a short while.. next time though.. LONGER time… promise…and maybe we can um.. protest as well…
chuckle.. oh hairy d… that was brilliant 😉 trying to visit the universe, one bean nation at a time
next time will look you up…
aaieee! any woman who would trawl Spadina avenue on a saturday and brave the stink of a chinatown grocery store for a quaint fruit is a woman whose passion has overflown the levee.
or just maybe… the lingus and the bean took a trip to the hot box cafe before hitting chinatown… no? 😉
I’m wondering if the lackluster nature of today’s India (Independence) Day parades are a symptom of:
(1) Suburbanization of browns (including their businesses) – as the Bipasha Basu incident shows, Edison NJ can muster at least as much of a crowd and festival as Manhattan, if not more so. The Bay Area’s parade was in Fremont, away from San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. What will be next? A parade in Schaumburg, IL?
(2) Splintering of browns and their organizations/events – Now that we have Baisakhi Day and Navratri events attracting thousands of their own attendees and more fervent celebrations, it drains some of the meaning of what would otherwise be “big” Indian events (such as Independence Day). Also, without such sense of purpose or meaning, the pan-Indian organizations seem to be rife with splintering, petty personal/political disputes, and sycophancy. With limited time and resources, given a critical mass of a large, diverse desi community, more people are going to invest in their particular faith or regional/ethnic/lingustic group.
I should point out that these phenomenon seem to be more in place in the few select, large cities with large desi populations (NY, Chicago, Bay Area, etc.). I see a lot more unity in Indian communities in areas like Charlottesville, Virginia and Columbia, South Carolina, because the small size of the communities foster (if not force) more cooperation. You can’t have two or three Gujarati associations or two or three South Indian temples in these places. You pretty much have to cooperate with one or two organizations and one, maybe two temples. Now that I live in such an area, the Indian community here reminds me more of the early closeness of the one I remember growing up in Chicago in the late 70s/early 80s, when folks would still have to rent public park halls in the city proper, rather than having a dozen or so temples scattered across northeast Illinois.
Living in a small midwestern town, the only celebrations we had growing up were on Diwali and one other time a year, and they were usually the traditional “cultural” shows with dinner and the kids performing. And even those events and the organization that put them on has since dissipated as the original First-gen Indian community has aged and moved on. Is it like this in most American cities?
In the DC suburbs, we have a Diwali “mela” that is mostly a bunch of stalls selling their wares, some more stalls for food, and some cultural programs performed by kids or whatever, which is ignored by many most of the time. I don’t feel a sense of desiness in the crowd. It’s like going to the mall really, a desi mall with desi people and desi stuff, and you can bargain. I’ve had train rides in Bombay that were more exciting than the Diwali mela. There is a huge influx of First-gen desis in the DC area (just like the huge influx of everyone else, I guess), and I get the feeling that desis go to the mela because they feel obligated to. We have to do something for Diwali, so we go. I wish there were more options. Maybe some fireworks, or maybe have a rangoli contest or something. Frigging shopping for clothes is boring.
After 20 years in NYC I no longer go to that parade. I think 10 years ago it was filled with people who wanted to be there because they wanted to show their desi pride. It wasn’t ghetto floats with half naked chicks dancing to Chaiyya Chaiyya. It used to be traditional dancers, colorful floats.
Then at some point in the 90s, the last time I went to the parade a kid shot another kid (some Pakistani / Indian thing) and it pissed me off. Sheer stupidity. I’ve watched a bunch of Pakistani kids run thru the parade waving the Pakistani flag. And people just gawk and put up with that bullshit. It’s totally thuggish. You don’t hear of Indian kids doing this during the Pakistani parade. Why? Because they’d probably get the shit kicked out of them.
This is one big reason I don’t go any longer. Neither do those old timer desis that moved away from the metropolis to the deep crevices of Jersey and Long Island to get away from exactly this kind of behavior. People just don’t bother anymore. There are too many other festivals during the year to cater to everyone. This just lost its importance.
When I was growing up, this kind of behavior came from Jersey and Lawnguyland. That’s where there were desi gangs, not in the cities.
Perhaps the fabric has changed. Even if you look at the neighborhood changes in Nassau county where in major towns like Floral Park, Bellerose & New Hyde Park nearly every 4th house bought is bought by a desi, the desi presence there is unmistakable. These are folks that are no longer going to Jackson Heights and those “gangs” of kids they had have grown up. The new breed of “gangs” and poorly behaved kids seem to be more transitional and from the city than from Lon guyland and Dirty Jerse!
As someone who grew up going to the India Day Parade, starting from the very first one when I was a tyke, I can definitely say that it has changed, and Janeofalltrades is right, it isn’t as important anymore. I marched in the Parade in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It used to be one of the few times that Indian people could really stick out in NY except for Jackson Heights. That’s not the case any longer, and Indians have become more accepted as a group. And yes, that entire Indian kid getting shot by that Pakistani kid in the 1990s also made it lose a lot of its luster. As for the Pakistanis being anti-Indian at the parade, I have to say that IMO that is true. I’ve seen numerous cars on the LIE on the day of the India Day Parade with Pakistani flags, and usually these cars are filled with young guys. Would Puerto Ricans dare impinge on the Dominicans day of celebration, or vice versa? Do Indians do this crap to Pakistanis? It is uncalled for and a shame.
Just to put things in perspective, Independence day in India isn’t a big deal either. You get the day off, and you watch the parade on TV, and that’s it. You just enjoy the day off. It wasn’t a big deal for my parents too. It all seemed like too much flag-waving to me. “Mera Bharat Mahaan”, kiss my ass. Perhaps, it was a bigger deal for my grandparents, because they had actually gone through it.
Maybe, the situation here in the US is a reflection of the situation in India. Older First-Generationers might have more pride, but as we have more and more new desi immigrants coming in the 90’s, nationalistic pride has been dying down. Not saying that second generationers don’t have pride in India, but celeberating nationalism seems rather pointless for immigrants, doesn’t it?
who needs the hot box when you have mangoosteens!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
–Not saying that second generationers don’t have pride in India, but celeberating nationalism seems rather pointless for immigrants, doesn’t it?
I dont think that’s true. If someone calls themselves “Indian-American”, then whats the point in not celebrating. Whether anyone likes it or not, thats the way everyone is labeled as. You might as well have some fun enjoying nationalism for a couple of hours. It may not have been enjoyable this time, but you should try to enjoy the two hours of nationalism maybe by bringing in some partying mutineers.
–Not saying that second generationers don’t have pride in India, but celeberating nationalism seems rather pointless for immigrants, doesn’t it?
I dont think that’s true. If someone calls themselves “Indian-American”, then whats the point in not celebrating. Whether anyone likes it or not, thats the way everyone is labeled as. You might as well have some fun enjoying nationalism for a couple of hours. It may not have been enjoyable this time, but you should try to enjoy the two hours of nationalism maybe by bringing in some partying mutineers.
Arre baba!! How do I explain this? Partying with your Desi friends is not nationalism. Nationalism is taking pride in your country, the progress she has made, and beleiving that your country is the best country on earth. The slogan “Mera Bharat Mahaan” represents nationalism quite succintly. “Mera yaar mast mast” is not nationalism. Cultural pride is also not nationalism. For a person to be nationalistic, they should have a sincere belief that their country is The Best Country On Earth(tm) and should be considered The Center Of The World, Nay, Universe ™ . I don’t see many Indians sharing that belief.
Also, mainly, there are so many things you can celeberate, that Independence day, generally, gets pushed down. I mean, I have so many things that I can do. If you make me choose between going to an Independence day parade and taking a nap, I would take a nap. Other celeberations have sweets involved. I’m not getting up to wave a flag. Get me some jalebi and I will talk.
I’d thought of going to that; now I’m glad I didn’t. Are there any pictures from the PDX event online?
The reason is obvious. Post 9/11 people don’t show up to these parades because they’re afraid the INS might be waiting there to deport them.
Hey Chick Pea!
GO FIGHTING MANGOSTEENS!
😀
we should totally have a mangosteen float at one of these. . .
Bronx HS of Science’s Indian Cultural Society did a float in one of these when I was a senior there. That year the small indian tv stations were there, there were small stores w/ floats but there were also thugs (and mind u not pakistani)who tried rushing up onto our float and others. It was annoying but we enjoyed ourselves anyways. I tried it one more year after that and honestly – I just didn’t care – same old same old grew outof it I guess. Went and got Bhel Puri at Sukhadia’s and never went back.