A week or so ago I saw this ad on...Facebook, I think it was? It was for a local event called A Taste of India being held at the Ted Constant Center (located on ODU campus). Me not being a biggot and a worldly individual (or try to be at least), decided I wanted to attend. Viewing this as an opportunity to spend time with my lady, I invited her much to her delight and happiness (she'd been wanting to go but had no one to go with).
So, we went! And it was quite fun!
Granted, it didn't have the varied enjoyment of, say, a renaissance festival or a theme park, but it still had it's own appeal in opening up certain aspects of a strange culture for people such as myself to experience. You initially walk in realize that this is not only a chance for regular joes like me to get a literal "taste" of India, but also a chance for the local businesses run and owned by Indian people to advertise.
The entire first stretch of the event was lined with booths of various Indian-owned businesses. Everything ranging from real estate, law practice, wedding photography. It was quite the site to see considering there must have been, oh, 10-12 different booths?
None of these interested me, however, so Julia and I moved right along.
Rounding a corner, we walk out into the main stage area.
This area was encircled by food vendors offering a variety of Indian cuisines (along with other cuisine vendors on the upper floor), and the main stage area where dancing performances were being done to the delight of the audience.
I didn't actually see many of the dances, but the ones I saw were almost entirely children. I have nothing wrong with children performing the dances of their native homeland, but I expected there to be some real professional-level bollywood-style dancing going on up there. Maybe it was later in the day, after we departed.
Ah, well.
Finally, there was the dealer room with a large number of stalls selling Indian-related goods. Specifically, but not entirely limited to, jewelry and female clothing. I made good use of this opportunity to splurge and buy my lady a few nice blouses and whatnot to enjoy. She, in turn, bought me a kurta! A nice black (go figure) kurta to enjoy and possibly use in future videos and movie projects.
We HAD a picture of me in said kurta, but Julia accidentally didn't save it haha. Poor thing was so upset about it after the fact.
The event was enjoyable but if I noticed a few things I would do differently to improve upon things. As I stated earlier, try and mix older dancers in with the children's performances. That way we can see the up-and-coming young'ns giving it their all AND see some semi-professional dancers. Next, I would like to see a little more variety in what was offered. Maybe have some booths set up discussing the history of India or some of the key sites IN India. It would have been nice to actually LEARN something y'know? Back to the main stage show, they should really get some better people to host because those ladies, as nice as I'm sure they were, did NOT grasp my attention to want to watch anything. I did anyway because I wanted to see the performances, but those hostesses KILLED it. Finally, and this is really nitpicking, but do NOT put the only exits in the entire building in a place that requires no food or drink. What if I want to leave with my drink? I can't do that if the only exit door is in a room that DOESN'T ALLOW FOOD OR DRINK.
People are nuts. Haha it was fun though and I'd like to go back next year if possible. Check it out.
EDIT: OH! I almost forgot! One of the foods Julia and I tried was a dessert called "rose ice cream". It's just like regular ice cream but it had the SWEETEST taste with, I kid you not, a floral aftertaste. It was amazing!
No comments:
Post a Comment