india day celebrations

yesterday after a (short) day of studying i went to the quincy house gym with william. i rowed and benched for a bit while watching "run's house," which is produced by commercial juggernauts russell simmons and sean combs. after having finished, i said "oh no!" because i had forgotten my promise to victoria to attend some kind of food festival with her that day. it was around 6:30 or so, so i called her quickly. luckily she and two of her roommates had been waiting for me. so we took off towards mgh.

it quickly became obvious that the festival was a huge huge celebration for india's independence day, which is tomorrow - there was no shortage of brown people milling about. the T stop at mgh is above-ground and open-air - it reminded me of the 125th station. we crossed an overpass to get to the park area along the river. on the far side of the overpass we were able to enjoy a perfect view of boston waterfront in the afternoon sun. after i sighed deeply and thought about seaside adventures, we walked through the park towards the festival. after walking past a sailing club, the first thing we saw was a huge dome. it was freakin massive. "cool," i thought, "a big dome." we got around to the other side of it and we found that it was a huge semi-circular stage with about a billion indian people sitting on the huge lawn in front of it. it was so amazingly festive - constant performances, little kids running around, people dancing and chatting on the green, long lines for food, fly fly honeys strolling about, and supercrisp sunny afternoon air. victoria and i made a circuit of all the booths surrounding the green. this circuit took about 30-60 minutes. on the way we picked up lots of food, some truly vile beverages, a pair of shoes, a sign that said "PARKING FOR INDIANS ONLY", and some raffle tickets. we cut across the green to reunite with her roommates, who had been waiting in line for food, and found them in the center where we sat down to eat food, watch dance performances, and chat with some indian people. we waited until the end of a performance by boston bhangra. by then the sun had set (it was an amazing sunset). as we left we could barely see people in the darkness - for some reason they don't have that many lights in the park.