I was at the Nottinghill Gate Carnival last weekend and it wasn't a semblence of the violence-ridden celebration that the British press has been making it out to be, for the last few years. What I saw was -- fanfare, lots of summer barbeques, gypsy-loads of gyrating Jamaicans and a another truckload from the Caribbean Islands.
Though I shouldn't brag about my race-identifying skills infront of my cousins, lest we get into another scuffle we got into, infront of the "House of Fraser" at Oxford Street-- "The man in the back-seat is Mexican/Bolivian/Indonesian/Philipino???!!Now, I'd say he's Polynesian (after a year of solid British education, and I mean it in a good way. :))
Talking about Nottinghill Gate, I have never heard so much Reggae on the streets and the whiff of corn and burning meat is quite something else. The security at the barricades had barely volunteered to take in the aroma of the food being prepared that the pungent smell of burning BBQ meat made them stop short. I loved it honestly, when the slightest drum roll in the distance would make some of these feathered women twirl and twist as if they were in some kind of a reverie.
The young kids were busy trying to show the oomph often exhuded by little kids wearing saree or pajama panjabi during Durga Puja in my city Calcutta and the carnival at Nottinghill Gate (without any exaggeration) is reminscent of the procession at Kumartuli or Jadavpur. Okay (spoiler alert) we Bengalis are very likely to say, "Oh the French, they are quite like us in their food habits," "Oh, the Spanish they are very close to us in terms of weather." Like all self-respecting Bengali I'd say, 'Oh, the West Indians are so like us when it comes to celebration."
Therefore, I am part West Indian. If I didn't have the camera with me I'd shake a leg with the feather-ridden crowd. Or, better still, I would have recalled my swagger with the mike and Papa Joe. Life is indeed a carnival (read "everyday" after the fullstop.) :D
Though I shouldn't brag about my race-identifying skills infront of my cousins, lest we get into another scuffle we got into, infront of the "House of Fraser" at Oxford Street-- "The man in the back-seat is Mexican/Bolivian/Indonesian/Philipino???!!Now, I'd say he's Polynesian (after a year of solid British education, and I mean it in a good way. :))
Talking about Nottinghill Gate, I have never heard so much Reggae on the streets and the whiff of corn and burning meat is quite something else. The security at the barricades had barely volunteered to take in the aroma of the food being prepared that the pungent smell of burning BBQ meat made them stop short. I loved it honestly, when the slightest drum roll in the distance would make some of these feathered women twirl and twist as if they were in some kind of a reverie.
The young kids were busy trying to show the oomph often exhuded by little kids wearing saree or pajama panjabi during Durga Puja in my city Calcutta and the carnival at Nottinghill Gate (without any exaggeration) is reminscent of the procession at Kumartuli or Jadavpur. Okay (spoiler alert) we Bengalis are very likely to say, "Oh the French, they are quite like us in their food habits," "Oh, the Spanish they are very close to us in terms of weather." Like all self-respecting Bengali I'd say, 'Oh, the West Indians are so like us when it comes to celebration."
Therefore, I am part West Indian. If I didn't have the camera with me I'd shake a leg with the feather-ridden crowd. Or, better still, I would have recalled my swagger with the mike and Papa Joe. Life is indeed a carnival (read "everyday" after the fullstop.) :D
