CARDIFF, WALES, October 26, 2001: Hundreds of Hindus joined together in Cardiff for a feast at the city’s India Centre as the community joins others across the world in celebrating Durga Puja. Friday’s colorful event marks the culmination of 10 days of festivities and religious ritual at the Centre in Splott. Up to 200 of Cardiff’s Hindu community have been gathering there each day, in worship of the goddess Durga. The President of the Hindu Cultural Association (Wales), Prabhat Kumar, described it is a major event in the Hindu calendar. A statue of Durga was commissioned in Kolkata (Calcutta) and imported for the event. The India Centre was opened two years ago. Since 1989, committee members had been driving up to 250 miles every Sunday, going from door-to-door collecting donations from the 8,000 strong Hindu community across south-east Wales. The UK Millennium Commission finally came to their aid, ten years later, offering a grant of US$466,000. This enabled the committee finally to build the $874,000 community centre.
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