Cultural Luncheon - Need Help!

Hi Ladies,

In order to promote diversity and cultural awareness, our GM has come up with this idea of a cultural luncheon.

A self-organized team from a particular culture will organize a one hour event to expose the rest of the department to this culture. The one hour event can be a presentation or a quiz or a game or anything. During this session, the team will also be served that culture's cuisine (catered from outside) i.e. the participants will be having food while this session is going on.

I have been signed up to be the organizer of a cultural luncheon for India. I don't want to make it a boring 1 hour lecture presentation. I need some suggestions as to how I can make this one hour an interactive and interesting way for the rest of the team to know about India.

Thanks for the team's input in advance. Look forward to your help.

Shalini

Hi Shalini,

The following things come to mind:
1. Demontrations of how to do kolam and rangoli( you can use diiferent materials like flowers, beans, then colored sand that you get in all the craft shops)
2. You can have a Demo of doing Mehendi( if you can ask some one to come to your works place to do it) .
3. I had to talk about India in my son's class last year, and to make it fun, i took a couple of sarees and my son's veshtis and the kids had a whale of atime trying it on.
4. If your group is of 4 to 5 people( male and female) mybe you can have a fashion show of all the indian dressesi.e sarees, salwars, kurtapajama for men, veshti with angavastram etc....... And one of you can explain the special occasions that these are worn.
5. lastly, if your gm will allow you to expense this, you can give everyone haldi kumkum ( make up a samll basket that you get in 1 dollar shops with a little something from India. I think a trip to Devon street will give you some ideas . ) you can explain the haldi kumkum tradition also.
Hope this helps
regards
Vandhana


In order to promote diversity and cultural awareness, our GM has come up with this idea of a cultural luncheon.

A self-organized team from a particular culture will organize a one hour event to expose the rest of the department to this culture. The one hour event can be a presentation or a quiz or a game or anything. During this session, the team will also be served that culture's cuisine (catered from outside) i.e. the participants will be having food while this session is going on.

I have been signed up to be the organizer of a cultural luncheon for India. I don't want to make it a boring 1 hour lecture presentation. I need some suggestions as to how I can make this one hour an interactive and interesting way for the rest of the team to know about India.

Thanks for the team's input in advance. Look forward to your help.

Shalini[/quote]

Hi Shalini,

I think vandana has given good ideas for ur luncheon. i want to add some more. May be they will be of some help to u.

• If you have a good number of Indians in ur team, u can rehearse and perform a small dance number from a movie or a classical number (if u have classical dancer/s), with ethnic attire.
• If there are good singers/musicians u can ask them to showcase Indian music to others or u can show them how we all play antakshari when we get together.
• Last but not the least, don't forget to sing our national anthem in chorus.

Hi Shalini,

That's a good idea to have a cultural luncheon. It is an interesting way to tell people about different cultures of different countries. Doing it for Indian culture should be pretty easy with so many ideas from IndusLadies friends!

Here are some of my ideas...

1. You can give a preview of different major States in India - like Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, etc. by dressing up a team of members in the typical traditional wear of each State. Ask them to talk about the State they come from, the famous things in their State, their Language, food, etc.

2. You can also arrange for a variety of Indian foods - one item depicting each state - like Rotis/Naan with a some Paneer North Indian dish for Maharashtra, Bisibelabath(Sambar saadam) for Karnataka, Aviyala for Kerala, Hot avakkai pickle or Gongura chutney for Andhra, Vadai, Appalam, Rasam with white rice and Payasam(dessert) from Tamil Nadu.

This also takes care of the food during the luncheon.

What do you think about my ideas?

Good luck for an interesting luncheon. Please do share your experience once you are done with it.

Kanmani

hai,
you can do a demo with a saree- the same length of cloth used in different states, bengali, gujrati,coorg,tamilnadu (kandangi, normal). Rangoli also of different states, white powder for tn, design for other states, flowers for kerala etc.
All the best.
varloo