GUWAHATI, Sept 1 � The town of Fremont in the San Francisco bay area of the California state in the USA, was witness to an elegant �Assam� float, created by the local Assamese community there to showcase Assam for the first time in the annual Indian Independence Day Parade in the bay area on August 17.
The float was the draw of the parade as it won the award for the best theme. The chief guests at the event this year were Bollywood artistes Ayushman Khurana and Esha Deol.
Besides Assam, floats of several other states of India also participated in the parade.
The Indian Independence Day parade in San Francisco bay area is an annual event that has been organised for last two decades by the Federation of Indo Americans of Northern California (FIA), an umbrella organisation of over 50 bay area organisations of IndianAmericans.
The �Assam� float was conceptualised by Pranamee Sarma and her husband Arpan Barua, who have been living in the bay area for last few years and they took up the task of showing it in the next available parade.The couple got strong support from Chairman of the Parade organising committee, Deepak Chabbra and mobilised the local Assamese community to create a presentation with a larger than life sarai, crafted from wood as Assam�s cultural mascot on the float.
The float truck where the sarai was mounted, was decked with silk gamochas, mugar mekhela, pator chador besides posters of Ronghor and of the music legend Dr BhupenHazarika. Ladies attired in pator mekhela chador led the float moving through the parade. They were followed by other ladies in mugar mekhela chador with bright red woven floral patterns all over, and dancing to racy beats of popular Bihu songs.
Without taking any help of professional workshops, Arpan and Pranamee�s team worked for weeks from living rooms/patios, Star Buck Coffee shops/ restaurants through what they call �chaos and madness� and �labour, late nights and pizza� to create the award winning float.
