Masala! Mehndi! Masti!

I was at the Masala! Mehndi! Masti! South Asian festival at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre tonight, with my youngest. The festival started on Wednesday of this week, and will run through the weekend to Sunday. Early predictions put the visitors to the festival at topping 100,000 people. From what we saw tonight, I'm sure they will surpass that number. There were a lot of people there. So many, that it made leaving -- even early -- like pushing through molasses. It was a good night though. The wind was great coming off the lake -- it wasn't cold, nor hot. Almost perfect. My youngest and I dined on Indian food -- there were many stalls under the food tent, and every one of them was Indian, serving pretty much the same things. We caught two performances: Tantra and Tina Sugandh. Tantra played classical Indian music, and the guys were really good. An old idiot in front of us kept shouting out at them to play some "raaja" between each piece they played. Tina Sugandh was something else. She started out by herself on the stage, dancing and singing some pop tune (in English). I wanted to get the hell out of there. She was strutting like Britney Spears wannabe. However, she followed her first number with a catchy tune that included her band. The best came when she invited her parents onto the stage to play some traditional hindi music -- a couple of which I recognized. The audience actually came alive when her parents joined her -- and not just because of the traditional songs -- her dad has quite the stage presence. Tina Sugandh herself appeared at times to just be trying way too hard.