Discover India

The local TV station website told me that the annual “Discover India” celebrations were happening today in Annette Strauss Artist Square, in downtown Dallas. It was free, and so automatically wins out over truck-racing at the Texas Motor Speedway (which I’d love to go to, just once, but not for $25), or Cirque du Soleil (at a whopping $195!), or the last weekend of the State Fair (I saw enough fat Texans last year).

So I headed towards Dallas, and parked 100 yards from the supposed site. Since it starts at noon, and it’s already 11:55am, I’m already thinking that something’s wrong. Either I’ve got the date wrong, or Annette Strauss has, because it’s completely empty. I walk over a block towards the “Arts District” (which is difficult to fit in the same sentence with “Dallas” and still sound credible), and find two of Dallas’ finest on their bicycles (yes, bicycles – and this is probably just as well, given that, as they freely admit, 20% of the Dallas Police Department’s motorized vehicles are out of commission at any one time, and most of the others are older than they legally allow taxicabs to be). I ask them where the “Discover India” activity is, and they don’t know; they call into their central command station, and they don’t know either. I thank them, walk one block, and fall over it. Not only is the street blocked off, but there are joint exhibits with the Dallas Museum of Art, the Childrens’ Museum, and the Crow Museum of Asian Art. I’m beginning to think that the first “D” in “DPD” doesn’t stand for “Dallas”.

It was small, but delightful. A street market with about 20 stalls, with a stage at one end. The first act was a group of 7-8 year olds, performing classical Indian dance. They had to stop half way through because the sun had heated up the outdoor stage, and they were dancing in bare feet. Resourcefully, the organizers quickly laid carpet, and everything continued, albeit half an hour behind schedule. I lunched on Chicken Tikka Masala with Mango lemonade, and watched Indian classical dance, “Bollywood” dance, and classical ragas on violin and tabla (it was difficult for me to tell when they had stopped tuning and started the raga – but that’s my ignorance rather than their imperfection). I never cease to be amazed at the range of sound that can be produced from what look like a simple pair of drums, although the violin, being fretless, is ideally suited to producing music based on a musical scale radically different from our own.

Before heading back to the hotel, I visited the Dallas Museum of Art. I concentrated on European art, and Contemporary art, because there’s rather too much to take in all at one go. To my eyes, “contemporary” art is 50% thought-provoking and 50% rubbish. At the same time, there are some whose views are diametrically opposed to mine, just as there are some poor souls who think that it will be a good idea to vote for George Bush on November 2^nd.