Modi Fever Spills Over into the US Landscape, Houston Included
By Jawahar Malhotra
HOUSTON: The pent up enthusiasm over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first official visit to the US after his recent election generated a wave of support at the screening of a live telecast at India House of his speech at Madison Square Garden this past Sunday, September 28.
The delegation of Houstonian community activists, who worked for the Modi campaign this past summer, went to hear Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi give his speech to the public at Madison Square Garden.
Over 150 people came together at the event that was organized by the Global Indians for Bharat Vikas, the India Culture Center and India House to join in wild cheering and clapping as Modi came to the stage and started to speak. There were shouts of Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki Jai from the crowd, while the GIBV volunteers and organizers Adit Kapadia, Hasita Kartick and Kunal Deshmukh emceed the event from the podium. The organizers picked up the live telecast from an online website, quartz.com and were able to follow other video clips also from other channels.
Houston businessman Jugal Malani and his wife met with PM Narendra Modi afterwards at a private reception in New York.
There were many Indian supporters of Modi’s and the Bharatia Janata Party which has the majority in the new Indian government, who had come from all over the US to New York City to witness the momentous occasion for themselves. Many in the India House event strained to see if they could recognize any of the Houston delegation in the random TV shots of the audience.
The organizers of the live tele-cast, from left; Kunal Deshmukh, Adit Kapadia and Hasita Kartick with GIBV; Girish Desai with ICC and Vipin Kumar of India House. Photos: Jawahar Malhotra
Many of those who were fortunate enough to attend later posted their experience and pictures on Facebook and shared their feelings with the media. “It was a wonderful experience”, said India House President Jugal Malani who went to New York with his wife Raj and met with Modi at an evening event. Sugar Land Councilman Harish Jajoo and Indian Consul Gneral Parvathaneni Harish also attended and met with Modi briefly. Several other GIBV members, like Ramesh and Kokila Shah, Sharad Amin and Gitesh Desai (both of who appeared briefly in a Star TV News clip), who went to India to work in Modi’s election campaign were among the crowd as well as other local diehard Modi supporters like Sujeet Draksharam and Subash and Sarojini Gupta. Modi paid homage to his American supporters for their help and played up to their impassioned sentiments.
A crowd of over 150 gathered together at India House to see the program in Madison Square Garden in New York when Indian Prime Minister spoke to an estimated 20,000 people.
Even the young people were energized by Modi’s presence. “I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to hear Modiji speak. It was inspiring to hear 20,000 people roar in approval. I hope we’ll all channel some Modi and deliver on what we promised him”, said Kavita Pallod, a PhD student at Rutgers University and daughter of local community activist Vijay Pallod.
Most among the crowd at India House were middle-aged first generation immigrants who still rile at the disappointing politics, infrastructure and the terrible corruption in their Mother land. They all appreciated every single word of Modi’s extemporaneous speech in Hindi and picked up on the nuances in words. One of them, Pravina Kadakia, a longtime resident of the Bayou City even wrote a short poem, Panchgun Bhoomi, equating the five elements – water, space, air, earth and light – to the qualities that India possesses and by extension, what Modi can build the country upon.