India Post News Service

NORWALK: With only three weeks to put together their weekend celebration of India’s 60th Independence Day, Amrit Bhandari and the FIA pulled off what looked to be a very successful August 11th event at Excelsior High School, only to have it derailed by a fist fight at the entrance that broke out around 8:30 pm.

Norwalk Police are currently investigating the incident, which involved a shooting as well, and at this time it is unclear if the culprits were a Latino or India gang members. “We had over 42 booths and 4000 people by 8:30,” said Raj Walia proudly. “As you know most people don’t start showing up until 8:30 or 9 pm, so we were probably headed for a whole lot more, but the police started turning people away for their investigation and that substantially cut into our attendance,” he said. Some patrons and vendors were forced to remain until 11:30 because of the police investigation, and apparently the ever popular Bhangra music that was playing at this function was also ordered shut down at 10 pm when the crowd was asked to leave.

However, this reporter got a lot of positive feedback from attendees who were impressed that rather than long speeches from the stage which often characterize these events, the program was kept simple and straight forward. The lighting of the lamp by Trustee Ravji Bhai Patel and the honoring of both India and America was quickly followed by a few choice words by California State Assembly candidate Harry Sidhu.

The Indian National Anthem was jointly sung by the FIA LA committee members: Amrit Bhandari, Raj Walia, Mohan Sharma, Varinder Mehta, Sonu and Vibhu Sharma. To show unity they were joined by prominent leaders of community Manu Patel and Dilip Bhutani. Several community awards were then bestowed on the honored guests, one of which included India Post correspondent JS Bedi for his contributions to the press in the Indian community.

“We only had about twenty minutes of speeches and ceremony and then we went directly to the live music,” explained Varinder Mehta, adding that this encouraged dancing almost from the beginning of the event. A lively performance was given by Jatin Pandit, from the renowned Mumbai group Jatin/Lalit which have created a number of well known Bollywood music hits. And Gippy Grewal also flew in from India and was introduced by Mohan Sharma to entertain the crowds.

One patron raved about the Bhangra dancers from UC Irvine with a music/dance theme celebrating Punjab. Kudos also went to the sister and brother singing and dancing team of Khushi and Nauzad Sadri. For those who wanted to mingle around the grounds there were two huge jumpers for kids which many parents gave a big thumbs up for families in attendance. “We thought we were going to combine programs with another Indian community for six weeks before this month, so the fact we had a short time to put this together is remarkable,” reflected Ravji Patel.

“Everyone told me they had a great time and wanted to come back next year,” he said. It seemed unanimous from those in attendance that the less long speeches the better for most of these Indian cultural events. Raj Walia’s team seemed to take notice of this often voiced request so having live music and dancing almost from the beginning seemed to really resonate with the crowd. Raj Walia and Mohan Sharma also wanted to thank the key sponsors, Farmers Insurance Group and New York Life, who were instrumental to the success of this celebration of India at 60.