On each of the four tables in the World Music Hall, four vases of alstroemeria stood, pink-throated or holding up white petals bordered with red, supported in ellipsoidal vases. Seated, a crowd of nearly 100 Middletown-area residents and members of the University community ate vegetarian South Indian fare on paper plates.
Keith, a resident of Thomaston, Conn., a town about 30 miles northwest of Middletown, spoke between bites of lemon rice about his perception of the Bhojanam (the feast) and the greater Navaratri festival. Having read about the festival in the Hartford Advocate, Keith decided to attend for the first time, saying, “Wes is providing a venue where people can experience Indian culture.”
As an intergenerational crowd ate under heavy lights, Thad Dunning, who traveled from New Haven for the Bhojanam, discussed the feast with his partner, Jennifer Bussell, a doctoral candidate in Political Science who has spent a total of four months studying in India over the course of three visits. Bussell, who picked India as a focal point of her studies, said that she was drawn to the area for the “pure beauty of the things that are produced there.” Dunning, who spoke about the wide variety of restaurants in New Haven, was very pleased with the Bhojanam food and said that, despite an extensive number of eating options, the New Haven area still possesses nothing quite like the Navaratri festival.
As it is the only one of its kind in the area, the University’s Navaratri festival attracts a great deal of attention. During its five-day run, 90.5 FM (National Public Radio out of New Haven) ran several reports on the festival in conjunction with a number of guest performances celebrating the Indian Music Program at Wesleyan.
The feast itself involved a range of vegetarian delicacies. CFA staff served up plates full of Rasam, a South Indian soup prepared with tamarind or tomato, Sambar, a lentil-vegetable stew and vegetable samosas, and Sheera, a semolina milk pudding and yogurt for dessert.
Many students in attendance said that they came for a taste of “something different.” Students and visitors to the University community alike commented on the range of ages and balance of the student population to those who traveled in from other parts of Connecticut.
The Navaratri festival, which occurs every year in early October, draws an impressively extensive crowd to the CFA for five full days of singing, dancing, lectures, worship and the annual vegetarian feast.
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