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| Diwali 2002 In London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bullets: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| * Diwali was celebrated in the house of Parliament in London * I got an invitation from Mr Ramesh who organized this event. * The celebrations began in the heart of London in Trafalgar Square! * Shweta Shetty and Harbhajan Mann sung their best numbers live! * This is my first interaction with the Indo-Brit culture. |
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| "September to December" the best season to be home! And this is what I missed this time. I was very upset and feeling homesick initially. In fact, I kept calling home twice a day in those days. Doing nothing on Diwali is not my idea to celebrate Diwali. I was determined to enjoy this King Of Festivals to the fullest. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| My search on the Internet had begun well in advance. Finally, I got a person near Harrow who gave me the list of events happening in London for Diwali. The first thing was Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square. Apart from being a major tourist attraction, this is the most happening place in the heart of London. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The celebration begun at 6:30 PM on Friday, 1st Nov 2002. We could reach the venue only at 7:15 PM when the show was about to be over, as our client did not recognize this festival! There were around 1000 Hindus gathered there. There were series of Group-dances, Dandiya-ras and Musical plays. The best was the musical play by children from Gujarat showing the rituals and practises about the festival. There was free food from the Mayor of London who commenced this celebration. We danced and enjoyed looking at British people and other tourist who were in turn enjoying watching us. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Second day, i.e. 3rd Nov 2002, there was a Diwali Procession on Ealing Road in London. Ealing Road is full of Gujaratis and other Asian communities. This road is about 2 kms long. It was full of people on both of the sides. There were at least 3000 people who were standing for 3 hours in heavy rains to watch the procession. I reached the place from where the procession was going to start. I had to wait for three hours to see the beginning as the schedule was over stretched because of heavy rains. There was team from a TV company to film this event. I got along with them telling them all about the festival and eventually used their lights for my personal filming. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The procession had decorated floats depicting the Diwali theme. Some children were dressed like gods. They had to rush to the end point because of the heavy rains. The procession finally ended at a Brent Park near Central Wembley. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| There were cultural programs afterwards. I thought it wouldn't be a nice idea to stand in the heavy crowd on muddy ground and heavy rains. But I just went a little ahead to check out what was happening. There were bollywood numbers being played on high wattage music system. The speakers were really huge, pumping out nearly 50,000 watts of ear bursting music! Well, that fascinated me and I got into the crowd shooting them. Dancing on the beats of bollywood numbers I felt like I am in India only. Soon, Shweta Shetty and Harbhajan Mann appeared on the stage singing their best numbers! That was like icing on the cake! The show was simply fantastic! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Then started the most awaited, The Fire show! The crackers were neatly arranged in a circle at least 300 meters away from the crowd watching from behind the safety barracks. This was the first time I was watching the fire show live! Each cracker they fired was a novelty in itself. They made several beautiful patters in the sky. The only ambiance the park had was of the glittering crackers! They had a power to create a dream world around us. It looks beautiful when you see sparkles all around you. The show was on continuously for one hour! That's a long time! Isn't it? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The orchestra was still on. Public got tuned into Harbhajan's Bhangra numbers. I danced for a while and then decided to part. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On my way back, I received a call from Mr Ramesh who had given me all this information. He invited me to join him for dinner, but I couldn't make it as the restaurant was quite far. Ramesh wanted to meet me and he waited for me outside the restaurant with his newborn baby, his Wife and Parents. I felt very bad for making them stand in rains for me. I went to his place with him for coffee. We talked a lot about cultures and ourselves. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ramesh is settled in UK since ten years. He is an active member of Hindu committee in London. He has organized the Diwali event in the House of Parliament in London. There were many things to know from him. We were talking till late in the night. He suggested me to stay at his place as going out in Central Wembley in the night has high risk of mugging. So I decided to stay back at his place. He invited me for "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" temple's celebration on the next day. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| We got-up at 6:30 AM the next day and had quick bath. Then his friend came to pick-up us. We went to Watford. We could attend the early morning aarti at 7:00 AM there. The aarti was very nice. There were hundred of candles glowing in front of the Murty and everyone had a candle in hand. It looked very beautiful. After the aarti, there was a Pravachan from the head of the temple. 60 percent of the people in the temple are British. All the activities are very well organized and neatly carried out in a very decent way. The aarti had a wonderful rhythm and superb music. The Pravachan was followed by breakfast. The hot khichadi, rabadi and an apple with green tea made a perfect start of the day for me. It was so yummy! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ramesh went for meeting as he is in the body. I explored the campus. It is 77 acres of land. They have a beautiful pond and nicely developed landscape around. There is Goshala run by the trust. I met Mr Dikshit who had just finished his computers degree and now he teaches Sanskrit in the temple. It was my first interactions with the Indians who are not into IT and are settled in UK since long. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mr Dikshit dropped me to a nearest tube station on my way back. It was a perfect day and I had actually enjoyed the Diwali event to its fullest. Tired and sleepy, I came home and slept like a log! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| So long, | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rahul | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The pictures are uploaded on my website: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| http://photos.yahoo.com/rahulinframe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Look at DiwaliInLondon album | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Home | Rahul Naodhar Home | |||||||||||||||||||||||||