Nerve Endings Firing Away

This weekend was slightly different from the other mundane ones as we continue to countdown to our day of departure. Texas A&M University’s International associations got together and hosted the first Brazos Valley Worldfest in historic downtown Bryan. Bryan is College Station’s twin city and is more like small town American complete with Main Street, Carnegie Library, and a decrypt under-renovation theater. The festival was hosted in this historic district to bring people out to the downtown and “celebrate international awareness by offering cultural displays, demonstration, international cuisines, children’s crafts, and other related competitions” [source].

When I was in Atlanta, I used to love going to the annual Dogwood Festival which although didn’t exactly have the international flavor was more like the Anand Mela we have in India. The Brazos Valley Worldfest thus paled in comparison and the cultural displays were at best, mediocre. I’m sure Semantic Overload who was the Culture Display Chair worked hard to attract international associations but I had hoped the organizations had put in a little more effort. On the flip side, the performances on the two stages were pretty good. We didn’t stay for all of them but managed to catch a few on the Community stage.

The first one was basically a song-dance performance by pre-school kids and although rated high on the cute scale, didn’t offer much for people other than the parents of the kids on the stage. The second one, Belly Dancing by the TAMU Belly Dance Association (yup, there is such a group) was as expected a crowd-puller. It started out with too many bellies on stage but soon after the more proficient ones stayed on for more rigorous routines; some involving balancing a sword on their head. Again, I hate to compare but I have seen a professional performance when I was in Atlanta at a similar international fest so it was kinda underwhelming. The final one was a series of dances by groups of desi kinds on the tunes of Bollywood numbers. Although they chose good songs, the dance skills left much to be desired especially among older kids. The strange part was that the other performances – the pre-school kids dance and the belly dance also had some desi numbers. Kids dancing on Kya Karu Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and goori pooris sashaying their bellies on Kaliyon ka Chaman was a bit weird. Apart from these stage performances, the Czech Dance Group did an impromptu street performance in front of their booth.

Finally, the main attraction of any international festival – the food. Again, the booth bearing the name of India had the worst Indian food whereas another booth manned (actually wo-manned) by a local Brazos Valley Group offered tandoori chicken and bhel puri. The vegetable pakoras by the India group were pathetic compared to the tandoori chicken and bhel puri by the local group. I was surprised to see a whole bunch of desis slicing and dicing veggies and cooking them on the street making much mess to churn out a sub-standard food product. Why did they choose to offer this snack when we have plenty of other options suited for such an event (chaat, dahi vada, etc.) is beyond me.

Overall, it was a pleasant experience and am sure the subsequent years of this event would be much better. We picked up some ultra-cheap Texan artifacts from a local handicrafts booth. The wooden carved bust of a old cowboy and a wrought-iron Longhorn door knocker were a steal for the quality and coolness. I’ll put up their pictures soon. Until then, you can see some photos here.