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MARYLAND, U.S.A., June 14, 2003: Thousands of statues of Lord Ganesha began filling the Montgomery County Fairgrounds early yesterday, as dancers from India practiced their steps on stage, which offered shelter from the morning heat. For the uninitiated, the first day of the Heritage India Festival in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was a chance to learn more about the many cultures of the Southeast Asian subcontinent. Signs beckoned fairgoers to make posters about “Why Hinduism is Great.” Infants dressed in tiny saris napped in strollers, and teenagers bopped to the latest sitar-laced soundtracks from Bollywood’s tormented love sagas. But for the many local entrepreneurs in the large Indian-American community in the Washington area, the festival was a chance to cement business contacts and establish a broader network of clients and distributors. “People are coming up to us all day and asking us for the recipe. We’re lucky we brought two full trucks of food,” said Sanjeet Kanshik, who manages Ascot Restaurant in the District, as he doled out plates of Indian food. “This is a very good way to communicate with other communities here. Many people contract us for parties after this.” This was the festival’s second year and fifth location, and organizers expected crowds to top 15,000 for the two-day event, which ended on Saturday. Virginia-based Rushi Entertainment has grossed nearly $500,000 from staging the festival, which has toured the United States and provided a platform for Indian-American entrepreneurs to connect with Indian cultural enthusiasts. “What we are trying to do is create a day or a weekend in India for people here, and create a way for sponsors to reach out [to] the huge Indian diaspora,” said Shishir Misra, Rushi’s president. “Our community is very highly educated and established here, and the idea is to tap into community groups as well.” Between 1900 and 2000, the Indian population in the Washington D.C. area doubled, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the community is well-established in the region’s hospitals and biotechnology industry.

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