The Beautiful Kind

Yesterday was St. Louis’s first ever South Asia Heritage Fair, held in a conference center near the now-demolished Noah’s Ark (more on that tomorrow) in St. Charles. Hell yeah the venture was a big hit, representing countries such as India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

It’s not very often I get to be a minority in a crowd, but there I was, surrounded by mustached computer programmers in striped polo and short-sleeve button up plaid shirts, and beautiful women in brilliant, flowing saris and spangled jewels - peach and teal, orange and magenta, green and yellow, royal blue and purple.

The website depicts an Elvis impersonator, which I hope wasn’t misleading clip art, but just bad luck on my part to have missed.

The food (we tried Curry in a Hurry) was fucking spicy and amazing, definitely not dumbed down for whitey like the fare offered at Festival of Nations a couple weeks ago. God that food sucked.

There was a stage and festive music playing so adorable little kids could scamper about in their costumes, their ankle bracelets jangling. Or kids could throw themselves into the huge inflatable mosh pit in one corner of the ballroom - watching the frenetic mass was like watching a riot in an animal shelter, except there was a lot of gleeful shrieking going on instead of fur flying.

Two gripes: way too many balloons there for my taste, and sad to say, despite all the worldly attire and culture immersion, I still saw a few pair of Croc shoes.