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TORONTO: Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow performed bhangra and danced to Bollywood beats as she joined crowds at North America’s biggest Indian festival at Gerrard India Bazaar here.
Gerrard India Bazaar, which is the oldest and biggest Indian market in North America, drew a record 300,000 crowd of visitors to its 21st annual festival.
The Toronto mayor opened the festivities as the two-day event of food, Bollywood music, dance and fun attracted Indians, Pakistanis, whites, blacks and various other ethnic groups in Canada’s most diverse city.
READ: Chand Kapoor who turned Gerrard India Bazaar into a vibrant place
Stretched over seven blocks on Gerrard Street, the bazaar remained jampacked as fun-seekers, food and music lovers and shoppers thronged shops, food stalls and stages as Bollywood music blared from loudspeakers.
The organizers also introduced `Cricket Gully’ this year to introduce Canadians to India’s most favourite sport.
“Over 300,000 people, including more than 40 percent of non-Indian background, attended the festival this year. This festival has become a great platform to introduce our culture, food and sport to our next generations as well as the mainstream,” said Gerrard India Bazaar chairman Chand Kapoor.
Over 300 artistes from various ethnic backgrounds performed during the festival.
“We have never seem so much diversity of performers. Everybody seems to be drawn to Bollywood,” said Gerrard India Bazaar executive director Tasneem Bandukwala.
She said hundreds of businesses spread over the bazaar did a roaring business as Toronto authorities stopped plying of street cars to make way for two-day revelries.
“Many of our restaurants prepared some very special delicacies only for the festival,” said Bandukwala.
READ: Gerrard India Bazaar festival turns it into mini-India
Started in the early 1970s, Gerrard India Bazaar came up near eastern Canada’s first gurdwara – called Pape Avenue Sikh Temple – which was built in 1969.
The bazaar was once the only place for buying Indian groceries in North America. Indians from far-off places such as New York, Ottawa, Buffalo and Montreal used to travel to Toronto to shop at Gerrard India Bazaar.
The bazaar was also home to North America’s first Indian cinema hall – called Naaz – started by a Punjabi family in the 1970s.
READ: Moti Mahal in Gerrard India Bazaar is one of the best Indian restaurants in town
