Cultural group brings Brandon to new heights

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This article was published 28/08/2023 (1130 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A gentle breeze rolled through the Riverbank Discovery Centre grounds late Saturday afternoon, creating the perfect conditions for Brandon’s first Indian kite festival.

The inaugural event, put together by the cultural association known as Pragati, attracted dozens of local families this past weekend, ensuring that the sky was filled with kites of various sizes and colours by 5 p.m. and onwards.

This was a welcome sight for Arjun Patel, a settlement facilitator for Westman Immigrant Services who just emigrated from India to Canada in April.

Patel told the Sun that this event is traditionally held every January in his home province of Gujarat to celebrate Makar Sankranti, a harvest festival that signifies the transition from winter to spring.

While this local version of the festival was moved to August because of Canada’s famously cold winters, Patel observed that a lot of the playful vibes remained the same, where participants hooped and hollered as they tried to cut down their neighbours’ kites using abrasive string.

“This already made me miss my home a little bit, but I’m happy that we have a home away from home in Brandon,” Patel said.

Despite being designed for members of Westman’s Indian community, Saturday’s event drew in plenty of other Manitobans and members of the local immigrant community.

Food vendor Jackie Rodriguez revealed that this celebration is strikingly similar to a tradition in her home country of El Salvador, where residents fly kites throughout October to take advantage of that month’s strong winds.

“When I saw it, I was quite excited, because I actually haven’t done this in like 30-some years,” Rodriguez said. “It’s amazing to know how so much similarity we have in two different countries, even if we’re so far away.”

Overall, organizer Krunal Panchal was very happy with how Saturday’s kite festival turned out.

Not only did the event provide him with a little taste of home, but the sheer number of people who showed up also served as a good omen for Pragati’s future.

The cultural association debuted earlier this summer by organizing a yoga class and Hindu festival of colours (Holi), collecting the proceeds from these events with the hope of building a community centre for members of the growing Indian diaspora in Westman.

“Because it’s hard to find space for this many people indoors and most of the time it’s all booked, especially in the winter with hockey season going on,” Panchal said.

According to Nidhi Patel, Panchal’s wife and co-founder of Pragati, the group managed to raise nearly $1,400 on Saturday, which will go towards their goal of building a 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot facility that can accommodate a couple of hundred people.

While the task may be daunting, Patel said this kind of community centre in Brandon is vital for helping local newcomers hold on to a piece of their Indian heritage, especially for younger children who remember very little about their country of origin.

“They identify more as Canadians, and so do we, but we still want to hold our roots close to us and pass it on,” she said.

Moving forward, Patel hopes that Pragati’s growing reputation in Westman will keep anticipation high for future events, the proceeds from which will be set aside to secure a plot of land to build this community centre.

“That’s the goal this year, to do events and raise as much money as possible to get the down payment for buying land,” she said.

One of Pragati’s big upcoming events is a concert featuring Gujarati folk singer Atul Purohit. This show is scheduled for Nov. 4 in the Keystone Centre’s Manitoba Room.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com