Bihari Samaj

We went to Bihari Samaj last weekend as a break from househunting. It was a funny day.

The idea of Bihari Samaj (BJSM) is that India being a diverse country, there are few things that unite people - caste and state being two of them. So, in each big city around the world with an Indian Diaspora, there are regular gatherings of Bihari and Jharkandis. For Deepti it's a chance to socialize with other new migrants from Bihar and Jharkhand and to eat Bihari food. It's impossible not to run into someone from Deepti or my grandfathers' home towns. It's just that kind of place.

The other noble goal (apart from socializing) is introducing foreign born kids to Indian culture, on a more meaningful level than TV and movies.

So this weekend just gone past, we turned up at Ashwood Hall, for an Independence Day celebration at BJSM. Independence Day is on the 15th of August. The idea was to have the kids do an Indian dress up and put on a show and the ladies to have a fashion show with prizes awarded for the best dresses and costumes. Great, culturally significant.

My friend Anu despises BJSM. He is half bihari, on his mother's side, so he occasionally gets dragged along. We've discussed this at length; he cannot see the point of people getting together without a purpose of activity; mixing, eating and socializing is not sufficient. So he has gone to BJSM with several ideas for instilling Indian culture and knowledge into the gatherings - cultural nights, quiz nights, singing competitions, meditation sessions. All have fallen flat.

So seeing him turn up at this weekend's festivals was a surprise.

I think the highlight was the kids costumes. There were genuinely great dress-ups. One kid came dressed as Shiva, complete with blue skin and serpents. I was really impressed. Then there were a few kids dressed in traditional Indian dress great. However, the crowd wasn't that impressed and continued to talk and shout and drink as is usual at most Indian weddings and parties.

It then got a little bizarre.

Three kids came dressed as Batman. They individually proceeded to jump off the high tables to rapturous applause of the audience.

Normality was returned when a young girl did a seven minute dance recital to Om Shanti Om, though it dragged a bit. The crowd were unimpressed. Another young lady did a proper choreographed dance to Indian songs, there was a child reciting the national anthem of INdia, all good.

Bizarre returned. Young Jaswant wanted to do a dedication to Michael Jackson. He was complete with white glove and long frizzy black hair wig. To "Beat It".

At this stage, Anu was near melt down. The crowd loved it - judging by the relative lack of talking and shouting.

A Spiderman then appeared and I think another Batman.

Finally a young boy appeared in a familiar black white striped outfit, with AFL ball in hand. Anu cried "It only gets better..." as the young boy announced his name was Nathan Buckley.