Thank you  for making Janmashtami 2010 a grand  success.

Where’s Mahatma Gandhi?” Girish Naik said, straining to be heard by his team over the sound technicians

testing their equipment. Of course, Girish Ji was not t referring to the venerated, Mahatma Gandhi.Hours before

the August 28 evening start of Janmashtami, a major Hindu cultural celebration, Girish Naik,president of the

Hindus of Greater Houston (HGH), was trying to locate the organizers of the Mahatma GandhiLibrary booth.

They weren’t technically late, merely not yet present in the gigantic B3 Hall of the downtown George R. Brown Convention Center.

The 21^st annual HGH Janmashtami celebration, though, was no small event:  Thousands of people Indo-Americans and many others

were expected to turn out for a Saturday evening of costume and art contests,performing arts, and the immensely popular dance

segment closer to midnight, all to celebrate the descension of Krishna, one of the most beloved avatar.

All the pieces booths, performers, caterers, volunteers, behind-the-scene organizers had to be in place by the time a traditional

musical procession made its way to the stage to kickoff the event, and that moment was drawing uncomfortablyclose.

To Girish Ji's  relief, the booth organizers promptly showed up, as if on cue. Two-and-a-half hours later, the hall was ready and the

red carpet near the escalators were rolled out. Volunteer Tejas Dave was positioned at the flower-and-drapes-adorned entrance to

the hall, offering to apply kumkum to guests as they approach the red carpet.

“It’s always fun to volunteer at Janmashtami because we get to spend time with friends and participate in garba and at the same time

help out the community,” Dave said. Dave’s fellow volunteers have been volunteering at Janmashtami for anywhere from 2 to 6 years.

Most found out about the volunteering opportunities through HGH web site, and family friends on the HGH organizing committee.

Then, around 6:25 PM, a steady, thunderous beat filled the air as a contingent of 11 drummers and one cymbalist from theKerala Hindu

Temple began walking slowly away from their booth to join various HGH officials, a Hindu priest, a conch-blower,and two traditional

Indian dancers, one of whom held a religiously symbolic coconut on her head. The procession is formed, and the exultant HGH officials

dance and clap and rejoice at its head, relief and happiness shining on their faces. This signature event had been a year in the making, and

the tough part was over.

“We have to book the hall a year in advance,” HGH Vice President Partha Krishnaswamy said. “Then, three or four months before the event

we start other preparations.” Admittance to janmashtami is free, and event’s $30,000-plus cost is offset by donations. All the organizers

are unpaid volunteers. Krishnaswamy and other HGH Board members, coordinators, volunteers arrived at the hall at 10 AM the day

before the event to begin basic setup of the stage and booth aisles.

Roping in 42 organizations to occupy the booths was an effort that took several months and hundreds of emails, though. HGH Joint Secretary

Thara Narasimhan was in charge of the booth registration and placement. She also emphasized that Janmashtami is one of the few major

events that actively engages with the broader community that is, beyond the Indo-American population in Houston to spread awareness,

understanding, and appreciation for Indian Hindu culture. She highlighted HGH’s efforts in tandem with the Indo-American Political Action

Committee (IAPAC) to extend invitations to the Jewish Community Center (JCC) and local Vietnamese Buddhists.

“The whole community is invited,” she said. “That’s why we do this.” Houston’s diversity was indeed on display at Janmashtami, with guests

of many ethnicities and cultures arriving to watch performances by local schools of Indian dance, the costume contest which had several

non-Indo-American participants and the kirtan, traditional call-and-response chanting, by a multi-ethnic youth group from the International

Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The ever-popular costume contest, coordinated by Laxmi Murthy, drew over 60 children,
ages 0 to 13, dressed as various figures from Hindu religion .  Murthy, a new addition to the Hindus of Greater Houston team, said this year’s

contestant pool was marked by tremendous ethnic and cultural diversity.

Participants with African, European, and East Asian roots walked on the stage dressed as Krishna, Balarama, Radha, and Yashoda all figures

from the Krishna avatar leelas Shalini Kumar brought her two-and-a-half-year-old, Jeevesh, dressed as Krishna for his second Janmashtami

costume contest. But she also brought along her Cambodian neighbor and friend Lee Mau and her three-year-old daughter Bella, who was

dressed as Radha “She takes part in all our functions,” Kumar said. “She kind of grows up with us.”

Also present were Lisa Martinez and her children Mohan, 5, and Nalini, 3. Martinez heard about the competition through her godsister in

ISKCON, and dressed her children as Balarama and Yashoda. Kany, of Cameroonian heritage, arrived just in time to register his daughter

Amiyah, 3, for the costume contest. He said that he heard about the contest at his Hindu temple. Amiyah was dressed as Krishna and was

accompanied by her mother, who was playing the role of Yashoda, Krishna’s foster-mother. All participants in the costume contest were

given certificates, while winners as determined by a panel of four prominent Indo-Americans were given trophies during the general awards

ceremony. Sushma and Devinder Mahajan were honored for their work with the Arya Samaj and several other charities and philanthropic efforts

with a Lifetime Achievement Award; the Akhil Chopra Memorial Service ‘Unsung Hero’ award was given to Dr. Jay K. Ammangudi for his work

promoting Hindu culture through Bhagavat Gita classes and arts performances in the Greater Houston area; for trustworthiness and her decision

to donate 10% of her earnings to VPSS, Martha Olvert was awarded the Community Service award. The awardees received their plaques from

the keynote speaker, Swami Vidyadhishananda Giri, who spoke of the importance and relevanceof the Mahabarata, the Gita, and the life of Krishna

in today’s world.

Soon after the aarti, a concluding lamp ritual, at 10 PM, the chairs facing the stage were quickly hauled away by volunteers and guests, who were

suddenly moving with newfound alacrity for one, overriding reason: it was time to garba. Thousands of attendees—young and old, novice and expert,

Indian or otherwise—flooded the vast dance floor and flung themselves into simple yet artful group dances, bringing up foot-and-a-half sticks called

dandiya to lightly yet resoundingly tap their partner’s every few seconds. In the most basic form of garba, an even number of people line up facing

each other, and then begin the step-by-step rotation and dandiya-clashing to the beat of the singers and drum onstage.

The garba is usually the most popular segment of Janmashtami, and the trend prevailed this year: Krishnaswamy roughly estimated the crowd to have

swelled by 1,500 from the aarti to the peak of garba, which lasted till midnight, to a rough attendance peak of 4,500.As with all other parts of Janmashtami

garba was well-attended by a cross-section of Houston’s diverse population, a point that did not go unnoticed by Harris County District Clerk Loren

Jackson, who greeted the Janmashtami guests from the stage with the traditional Indian Namaste and folded hands.

“I strongly believe that the diversity of Harris County, in all the various communities we have and in the religious groups and ethnicities is really what makes

Harris County strong,” Jackson said. “And that’s actually a wonderful thing about the US, is that everyone here has the freedom to practice their own

religious view, beliefs while they’re here, and it’s what makes America strong.” This was Jackson’s second Janmashtami event in three years. “I absolutely

admire and respect this [Indo-American] community for all they do to give back,” he said. “I respect and appreciate them for what they’re going to continue to do.”

(Anirudh Ajith  Freshman at Northwestern University , Chicago)

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