Attended by over thousand people representing different cultural background, this year's "Mela" had something for everyone who came out: delicious Nepali food, photos and painting exhibition, dance and music workshop, face and mehndi painting, and a plethora of resource booths offering insights into the different facets of Nepal.
In its second year, the one day Nepali "Mela": The Himalayan Festival held at Nathan Philips Square on the 26th of August 2007 in Toronto took off from where it left the same day last year and to an even greater height this time. Attended by over thousand people representing different cultural background, this year's "Mela" had something for everyone who came out: delicious Nepali food, photos and painting exhibition, dance and music workshop, face and mehndi painting, and a plethora of resource booths offering insights into the different facets of Nepal. Knowing that people will want to take a part of "Mela" home; 300 beautiful red color t-shirts with white print stating - Nepal, home of Mt. Everest at the back and Nepali "Mela" 2007 in front; were designed that one could own only at $ 3.00 each. All this was beautifully complimented by colorful dances and musical performances on-stage by some of our popular local artists. Equally melodious were the new National Anthem of Nepal and O'Canada sung by the artists, the Nepali folk songs sung by Chris Hale and the flute, "Madal" and "Sarangi" played by Pradeep Baskota, Naveen Vaidya and Buddhi Basyal. Little kids impersonating Gods and Goddesses also looked very graceful. While the turnout of people and the presence of several entertaining activities at the square indicated an increasing popularity of this event both among Nepalese and non-Nepalese in Toronto, what was also encouraging to see this year was the extent of media coverage that we received from some of the major media in Toronto such as City TV, OMNI TV, ATN to name a few; a sign that the diasporic Nepali culture and community is being accepted as an essential part of Canada's mainstream and multiculturalism. NCCS is thankful to Naba Raj Gurung for effectively coordinating with all the media people.
One of the bigger challenges for
us was to secure sound financial resources to be able to plan for and organize the festival. Without some of the businesses and individuals such as Remax Realty, Western Union, SunLife Financial, Heritage Education Funds, E3 Tel Consulting and ICICI Bank stepping forward for us to become our sponsors, the financial muscles necessary to inject energy towards the planning process wouldn't have been there. It is a matter of pride to be able to confidently say that we raised as much as $10,000 for sponsoring the festival. NCCS remains thankful to all the sponsors.
It was however not an easy task to achieve the success, pleasure and recognition we think the Nepali community in general achieved from the 2007 "Mela". A 21 member coordinating team (Anup Neupane, Bijay Shimkhada, Beena Berma, Buddhi Basyal, Bishwo Berma, Daksaya Paudel, Durga Adhikari, Komal Sapkota, Madan Siwakoti, Meena Dhamala, Naba Raj Gurung, Naveen Vaidya, Pradeep Baskota, Rishikesh Adhikari, Saradha Karki, Sabin Ninglekhu, Susan Bhandari, Suraj Shrestha (Mabi), Shelley Snow, Sanjiv Rizal, and Vijaya Sharma) divided into nine sub-teams- Team Invitation, Team Sponsor, Team Vendor, Team Media and Press, Team Community Publicity, Team Culture, Team Site Planning, Team NCCS Booth and Team Printing - were formed and coordinated by Sanjiv Rizal. Different stages of team development - forming, storming, norming and performing were sensitively and professionally handled and coordinating tools like action plan, team strategies, and event plan etc. for future use were established and documented. The level of dedication, enthusiasm, and energy invested towards the planning of this event can only be gauged by a total of 438 emails exchanged within little more than a month between the team members who attended eight planning meetings apart from volunteering for approaching sponsors and vendors, making umpteenth number of telephone calls and spending hours coordinating cultural performances, t-shirt printing, corresponding with the Nepal Government for promotional cultural materials, and getting involved in printing, postering and promoting the "Mela". NCCS is thankful to Thinkbyte Design Inc. for the beautiful poster. To invite Nepalese households; members of the coordinating team visited them with "Mela" flyers and the 2007 Nepalese Canadian Community Phone Directory. Apart from the sacrifice made in terms of time, most members of the team also contributed $ 50 each towards the t-shirt design and printing. NCCS remains highly thankful to all members of the coordinating team.
Equally impressive was the dedication shown by the performers and artists on-stage as a team to put together a show that held the crowd in spell for much part of the day in the festival. NCCS is thankful to Nepali Community Janajati Association for participating in the "Mela" with the wonderful Gurung dance. A big credit goes to our emcees, Buddhi Sagar Basyal, Astha Tamang Maskey and Bidhan Berma for holding the pieces together with such aplomb.
In more ways than one, the "Mela" has rekindled the traditional Nepali practice of a 'market day' and helped to promote a spirit of community harmony and togetherness in Toronto. What the "Mela" provides us an open platform to celebrate our culture together. In doing so, we have also been able to meet people from different communities based on which we have been able to establish cross-cultural ties and add to the multicultural spirit of Toronto.
While we look forward to the third annual Nepali "Mela" in 2008 with much vigor and enthusiasm, we cannot help but thank the dignitaries, performers, kid participants, youth volunteers, Canadian friends, vendors and well-wishers/viewers without whom it would have been hardly possible to organize this MEGA EVENT. Our sincere thanks also go to the City of Toronto and to Mr. Harold in particular for helping to provide us an open public space as significant as the Nathan Philips Square to express, celebrate and represent our culture and our community.
Dignitaries: Hon. Dr. Kunjar Sharma, Hon Consulate General Of Nepal, Mrs. Carolyn Sharma, Prof. Lynn Brennan, Rev. Douglas Varey
Canadian friends who made the event more meaningful: Lynn Snow, John Defreitas, Harold Mah, Tony Makepace, David Walton, Sandy Hiralal, Judan and Steve Porter
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