The Indian "ArtsFest"

It was a cultural opportunity that we simply could not resist. The Zee cable TV network was bringing their Carnival to Singapore! And better still, the headline attraction was none other than Shahrukh Khan, the king of Bollywood.

A bit of introduction: The Zee TV network is the first Hindi satellite/cable TV channel. It provides the global Indian diaspora with a taste of home, showing Bollywood film, Indian cooking shows, news, reality shows, and musical shows around the clock. (It's been available in the US for 10 years.) And although the comparison is definitely apples to mangoes, Shahrukh Khan is somewhat the Bollywood equivalent of George Clooney.

So Raye got dressed in her salwar kameez and I put on a neru collar shirt I bought in India, and off we went to Suntec City on the MRT. Raye got several second looks on the MRT. To no surprise, the closer we got to Suntec City, the more and more we stood out as being outside the "target demographic" of the event. One Indian woman stopped Raye, took a long look at her, and simply said "Thank you, you have made my day."

Raye's too.

We'd bought our tickets in advance but it didn't save much time. The line to get in was long and there was a security check. Once inside, we picked up our goody bag of coupons and marketing literature and began making the rounds.

The room was blaring with Bollywood hit songs and there was a huge stage at the front with a subcontinental fashion show. I found it particularly interesting that the designer and models were from Pakistan. Looking around at the various booths, I realized that both Pakistan and India were represented. Apparently, combination of event-scale economics and the emphasis on cross-cultural harmony that is very much part of Singapore made this possible. And by the way, there were plenty of fans there from Malaysia and Indonesia who'd come in for the weekend. We were part of a crowd of about 10,000 people (according to the newspaper).

In addition to the main stage, there was an autograph stage, a cooking show demonstration stage (for Sanjeev Kapoor) a travel services area, a food court, and lots (and lots) of booths. The merchants covered just about everything one might imagine: clothing, jewelry, spice mixtures, those mouth cleansing seeds and stuff you get at Indian restaurants (more varieties than I've ever seen), astrologers, martrimonial services, ayurvedic medicines and treatments, and cultural newspapers.

It was wonderful walking around and taking a look. And we weren't alone: we saw a handful of other "out-of-demographic" folks making the rounds.

The various celebrities from Zee TV were making appearances (to the delight of the crowd) and signing autographs. However it became clear that the Bollywood King was going to be the very last person to come out and -- as interesting as it all was -- that would have meant spending the entire day there. So we took our leave from the carnival, happy with yet another interesting experience.