India Association of Oklahoma

MELA 2011 was indeed a successful event!  Most of the crowd showed up after 7:00 PM, and surely came in great numbers as the weather had cooled some what. It seems that this Mela may have attracted more people than previously, as the whole area was jam packed.Nine food stall representing different regions of India were ready with their mouth watering food to serve and they did a fantastic job!  All the hard working volunteers arrived at the park around 4:30 pm and set up all that was needed to get ready for the big event.  For two hours, the volunteers worked non stop to ensure every detail was addressed.

This year we did see many locals at the Mela, along with our Indian community, all digging into their pockets for the tickets that they had purchased as they entered the park. Anil Singh was in charge of tickets and he did an excellent job. One can’t say if there was one particular stall that did better than others, but for the Indian community and as well some American that came, the samosas were the most sought after item and got ‘Sold Out’, much faster than anticipated.  This was a disappointment to many. So, next year, we will know better and will order more. Just like last year, the pan stall was the busiest during the last hour. Thank  you Mr. Neeraj Khanna, for this brilliant idea. The volunteers for the children’s games stall did an outstanding job.  They kept our little ones and not so little ones busy and entertained.

To our excitement, positive comments were heard from all that came.  For less than $8.00, they had a delicious feast and many said they had never tasted any Indian food as amazing as what they tasted at the Mela. This event needs to be more advertised to the Oklahoma City community at large.

Pictures of the event will be soon posted on the website for all to enjoy.

It would be worth while that we thank all the hardworking volunteers that made this event possible.  In no particular order they are:  Rakesh Prasad, Sujata Prasad, Nita Saran, Kaushal Saran, Anil Singh, Pramod Vedrevu, Deepak Walia, Vivek Khanna and his son Dhruv Khanna and Mike Lulla. There may be some others helping too and IAOK thanks all. We would like to also thank all the members for helping out with cleanup, which is always the hardest part of any event. As a team, all the volunteers mentioned above and few more, pitched in.

Mr Sakar Kutty did an excellent work with covering the mela –he is a news reporter and his article and video clip was seen in TV Channel # 801-named USA weekly news and Daily Oklahoman, Times of India, The Hindu and The Indian Exprress.