East-West Times…Information you desire

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The Indian-American community across Florida turned out in large numbers and enthusiastically celebrated the country’s 64th Independence Day by hosting the Indian flag and organizing a series of events such as cultural events, songs and speeches. Amongst the Florida cities celebrating the day of liberation were Fort Lauderdale, Melbourne, Orlando/Casselberry, Tampa Bay tri-cities, Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Gainesville. The general themes everywhere was to honor the freedom fighters by holding parades, dance performances and of course with plenty of food stalls at each venue to highlighting the contribution of the Indian-American communities.
In Central Florida, India’s Independence Day celebration was held at the HSCF temple community hall and grounds on Sunday August 15th 2010. A feeling of celebration filled the air, the Tricolors and the Stars & Stripes flags, decorations, and the tents gave it a mela like feel, but inside the hall the day began at 8:00AM with a volunteer effort by the members of CAPI (Central Florida Association of Doctors from India) who held a health fair that offered free services, consultations and seminars. “This is an annual event since 2003” said Dr. Pillai, CAPI member who coordinated the health fair.
Hundreds of people came to get their blood work reports and discuss health issues with the volunteer doctors. Dr. Rajesh Patel, chairman of the Board of Trustees at HSCF said the “Temple partners with CAPI to offer free medical, dental, vision and EKG checkups for anyone and I heartily thank all the participating physicians, medical staff and volunteers.” Dr. Mahendra Shah, president of CAPI remarked it is “a tradition of the association to offer free medical services to community members two times a year.” Along with the medical booths, several talks were given by CAPI members on subjects ranging from Cardiology to healthy lifestyles.
By mid day the temple hall was in a festive mode with the start of the cultural program which began with a parade of more than 50 children dressed in costumes to depict historical characters from Indian history ranging from Jhansi ki Rani to Subhash Chandra Bose to Mahatma Gandhi. The program started with the Indian & US national anthems and then there were 35 dance, music, and vocal performances. The hall was full to capacity with more than 500 audience members, and more than a 1000 came to enjoy the rides, shop and eat.
Alka Shukla, HSCF’s cultural committee chair with her team of Minal Saoji, Anjali Palsule, Dipti & Rikti Smart along with local dance teachers came up with the theme of Indian Historical and Patriotic Dress Parade for the children. Alka said, “Some of the characters were Gandhiji, Jhansi Ki Raani, Jodha Bai, Jawarherlal Nehru, etc. All these children did a wonderful performance. They had to research the character and perform a monologue. This way learned about Indian history which was my purpose for Independence Day celebration.”
Anjali, one of the team members remarked, “For the past few years I was in the audience, and now I realize how much hard work goes into putting up this kind of show. With involvement from groups like Lakshya, (Rakhi Sharma), Bollywood Masti (Minal Jajoo) and others, we were able to put together this cultural program. The credit goes to the hard work of choreographers and all the participants and Ashish Smart did an excellent job managing the sound system for the event.”
Most of the cultural program items were performed by youth – about 150 participated, even the emcees were youth. Minal Saoji said: I have been coordinating parades and skits for our young performers for many years and working with them is amazing. However, my main goal is to teach them our culture. I must say working with little ones isn’t easy, but I love kids so it makes everything fun”. All the youth performers were top notch; a pair of young girls - the Kannan sisters - wowed the crowd with their Bharat Natyam dance while doing the hoola hoop. And the audience was spellbound by an awesome Kathak performance by the Chagganlal mother and daughters team. The program ended with a raffle drawing conducted by Sreenivas Jaragula, president of the HSCF executive committee that organized the program.
Outside the hall with the shade of the trees and the tents, people had a cool place to browse thru the merchandise and service stalls and enjoy their favorite snacks form the food vendors. The most popular stall was the one selling freshly made crispy masala dosas, and all the workers there were temple committee members like Saraswati Sampath, Jaya Swami, Ganesh Ramachandran and many more. Vignesh, a graduate student at UCF said it was a day to rejoice but at the same time one to remember the sacrifices made by many which led to Freedom. He said the “Event show and food, make me feel like I am back in India to our roots.”