Organizing a
mult-city mela takes time and effort. My typical day
begins at 7 in the morning. By 9 am, the phone
starts to ring. Usually it is the sponsors-
mainstream American companies like Western Union and
DirectTV who have a stake in the India Mela. I
update them weekly of our plans for the mela. It is
usually 10 am by the time I get a bite to eat.
Between 12 and 3 pm, I check my mails and write
emails. I get plenty of mail from all over the place
and respond to them in a timely manner. From 4 to 7
pm is family time, when I have dinner with my
parents and help clean up a bit. After 7 pm, until
11 at night, I’m usually on the phone talking to
each of our city coordinators, getting different
segments ready, such as health fairs, the venue, the
performers and the marketing. After 11 pm, we might
have a one-hour inter-organizational meeting,
reviewing and planning the next one week. We discuss
the sponsors, security, vendors, performers, the
venue and equipments, the marketing. We are
constantly updating our ads and flyers with new
sponsors and additional activities. Right now, it is
mostly logistical work, until the mela actually
arrives.
Prior to a mela, for 3-4 days, I barely sleep a
wink. I usually get a hotel close to the venue,
because if anything were to happen, I want to be the
first one to know. Thankfully nothing has happened
so far. Friday, we set up the venue itself. Saturday
morning, we wake up at the crack of dawn. Usually
the vendors are in soon thereafter. We serve them
breakfast and give them 100% attention. The day is
spent checking different stations, making sure
everything is running smoothly. Usually the mela
operates on its own, but we constantly keep tabs. I
don’t know if it’s Murphy’s Law, but whatever
can go wrong will go wrong! Even after midnight,
when the doors are closed, it is not over for
us…we take two hours cleaning the venue, when the
cleaning staff put away the tables and chairs, and
clean the floor etc.
The next day is like the first one. We get two hours
of sleep in between if we are lucky. At around 7 pm
Sunday, we begin a total breakdown of the event
itself. Usually it is 2 am by the time we finish. ,
Monday we do our accounting. Tuesday we do a review
of the event- talk to security, the vendors
etc.
We get one day to travel to the next city, and the
whole process starts again. During spring time, we
have back to back events. During fall it is kind of
slow. Last year, we did two melas and this year we
are doing five- two in March and April, and three in
summer. We are doing seven to nine cities. No other
organization has ever done that in its second year!
I was born in India and came to the US when I was
two. I grew up in the Maryland-DC area. Growing up,
it is was more of trying to get into mainstream
American culture. We kept our identity but always
wanted to blend in and not seem different. But
Indian culture is something that you can’t take
out. There is something special about it, which is
one of the reasons the India Mela is so successful.
We Indians are proud of our culture.
I was in the military for eight years where I was
amazed at the lack of cultural awareness in this
country. I was once at a boot camp and a person
there didn’t even know what a Hindu was. He was a
mid-west farmer type and wasn’t exposed to other
cultures.
United Culture was born with the goal to raise
awareness of other cultures. A multi-cultural,
non-profit organization, we have a board of
directors –20% Indian and the rest of different
ethnicities. After September 11, A British festival
was held in NY to promote British culture. That is
when the idea of promoting different cultures took
birth in my mind. The idea was researched, and
transformed 10-15 times before it was decided to
hold festivals and starting a scholarship. , But in
order to get any footing or foundation, you need to
do something to start off with. Being from the
Indian community and having a strong background and
community involvement in the Washington DC area, we
decided to have our first festival there. The
festival was a huge success with 12,000 people. From
there, we just grew. Hopefully, by next year the
festivals will be multi-cultural.
The India mela is a unique experience. We like to
think of it as an American festival, with everything
at one time at one point- music, health fair,
cultural programs, vendors, food courts, dance,
fashion show, kids activities and games etc. We also
have special night time activities like bhangra
and dandia raas. It is truly representative
of our culture and heritage.
With a very diverse population, the people in the US
need to live as one within their community, instead
of building walls around their own nationalities.
The only way to do this is to share with each other
the beauty, the treasure, and the rich heritage that
makes each of us unique. Only in learning about
others, can we enrich our lives as well as our
neighbor’s lives.
The India Mela will be held in the following cities
this spring and summer.
March 26-27 2005: MD SoccerPlex, (Germantown MD)
April 2-3, 2005: North Atlanta Trade Center
(Norcross, GA)
June 18-19, 2005: Raritan Expo Center (Edison, NJ)
June 2005: Dallas
June 2005: Chicago
-Mihir Patel
(As told to Veena Rao)
|