Discover India - A colourful outdoor fest

Yesterday, the Trammel Crow Collection of Asian Art, a private museum with loads of ancient and modern artworks from India and Asia had organised the Discover India outdoor fest in Downtown Dallas. This was organised much akin to the outdoor Ganesha festivals in India. The street was blocked for traffic and there were stalls/ booths of various Indian establishments including restaurants, boutiques and NGOs who are trying to remote control development in India.

This event to celebrate India has been organised since 7 years and every year the scale is getting bigger and better revealed the organisers. It was a great opportunity to showcase the positive features of India and the technological, social and economic advancement. But unfortunately few local non-profit organisations decided to do otherwise, they portrayed poverty, disease and other problems that are affecting the country. These issues are being faced even by America, precentages may be low but then they would never showcase it. We Indians need to learn how to portray ourselves better.

The Dallas Morning News published an article about the event. This was perhaps one of the few non-negative newsreports about India published in this widely circulated daily. The well-written article revealed some amazing facts, presented below:

1. Asian Indian population is among the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the United States.
2. Indian American population grew from almost 1.68 million in 2000 to over 2.32 million in 2005 – about 38 percent in five years. (U.S. Census Bureau)
3. Indians comprise 16.4 percent of the entire Asian-American community.
4. Indians are the third largest Asian-American ethnic group, first being Chinese-Americans and second Filipino-Americans. Isn't it surprising that there are more Filipinos than Indians in America, considering that Philippines is such a small nation.
5. An estimated 130,000 Asian Indians live in Texas (80,000 in North Texas alone).