BENTONVILLE - India’s Independence Day drew hundreds of people of Indian descent to a celebration rich in tradition and cultural heritage on Saturday, five days before the official holiday.
The country’s independence from British rule came on Aug. 15, 1947.
Those attending Saturday’s festivities at Bentonville Public Schools’ Arend Arts Center likened it to their version of the 4th of July holiday in the United States, which also broke free of the British.
Because India has nearly 30 states with differing cultural traditions and languages, the annual celebration is also an opportunity for the local Indian community to forge some unity via national traditions, they said. It also allows them to keep up with a mobile community, they said, because many Indian residents tend to live in Benton County temporarily, as part of their jobs as vendorsfor Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
“This is the place,” said Macharla Sanjeev of Bentonville, a Wal-Mart employee who is a computer program analyst, likening the event to a melting pot for all things Indian.
Macharla said that in his state of Andhra Pradesh, people list their surnames before their given names, but that is not the tradition for all Indian states. Although Hindi is most widely spoken in India, its states use 19 official languages of varying popularity, he said. Macharla said he speaks Hindi, Telugu and English fluently, and knows Kannada pretty well.
Attendees began gathering at midday for lunch, which included cuisine from India’s north and south, as well as street food such as vegetarian pakora, samosa chaat and baby corn manchurian.
A pageant followed that included song and dance performed by children of all ages wearing colorful, traditional costumes. Organizersdescribed the troupes’ performances as ranging from ancient dance to Bollywood-style productions.
“The kids have been practicing for more than a month,” said Nirupama Raghavan with the Hindu Association of Northwest Arkansas.
“Some of the dances you saw are some of the oldest dances performed in the world,” said Rahul Jalali of Bentonville, who served as one of the pageant’s master of ceremonies.
Jalali recalled that the Independence Day celebration “started out in a guy’s living room” more than 15 years ago and later moved to larger venues such as churches and schools.
“It’s just a sense of bonding and togetherness,” said Jalali, who moved to the area when there were only about 20 Indians in the community. Jalali works in informationsystems for Wal-Mart.
Raghavan said the most recent data she had seen indicated 3,000 Indians were living in the area, with 2,500 of them being Hindu.
After watching her 13-yearold daughter perform as part of the Blossom Dance Academy troupe, Hitha Vadakkepatt of Centerton mingled outside the auditorium’s lobby. Wearing a long, golden-colored traditional dress, she had a large camera slung around her neck.
“For us, it’s like people coming together,” said Vadakkepatt, a business analyst for UST Global, a contractor performing software services for Wal-Mart. “It’s like a feelingof home away from home.”
Raghavan, of Rogers, is president of the board of directors for the Hindu association, which built the Northwest Arkansas Hindu Temple in Bentonville last year. In just a few days, starting the day after the official Independence Day holiday on Thursday, the Indian community will celebrate the temple’s first anniversary with an event called Sri Krishna Mandira Prathama Vaarshikotsavam, running Friday through Sunday.
“Anyone is welcome to come to the temple,” said Raghavan, who was wearing a green, traditional long dress.
People tend to drop in to worship at the templealone at any time, but larger groups sometimes gather for religious, social or cultural events. Thursdays are popular days for people to come there and engage in a religious rite called puja, which can include chanting by a priest and sometimes a fire in which worshippers make offerings to a god, she said. Another popular activity is bhajans, or singing.
Raghavan, a Northwest Arkansas resident for 14 years, works for Cognizant, a vendor providing IT services to Wal-Mart.
She said of India’s first Independence Day in 1947: “A lot of us have parents who were alive then.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/11/2013