It must have been the third time in a row, if I'm not mistaken, that I attended the "other Oktoberfest", the one in Bangalore, which lasts exactly one evening, yesterday evening. On the big plus side – as also in the previous years – has certainly been the band from Lower Bavaria which combined true Bavarian "hum-ta-ta" Music with an amazing capability for re-playing contemporary hits. So the party was on, with dancing, in spite of the dance-ban in Bengaluru.
The most important: Pictures for such an event say more than a thousand words. Hence, here we are with the set "Bangalore Oktoberfest 2008" on my Flickr-account. Today I got the question by a journalist: "Is there a difference between the real Oktoberfest in Munich and the one in Bangalore?" – Well, I started with a lengthy intellectual answer on history, culture and tradition of the event, a bit like Barack Obama would do. Then I decided to swap for John McCain and the short answer was: "Imagine Germans in a dance school hopping to modern Indian music and try to compare that to Bollywood."
The crowd was very diverse, with a variety of nations each of then expressing their own interpretation of Bavarian culture, well, at least in South India. Yo, yo, here are the Ladies in da House:
In terms of representation of nation, the event was an official invitation of the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bangalore, Mr. Stefan Graf. (I just looked up out of general interest on Wikipedia, what the official address to a consul general would be. It's in German language "Herr Generalkonsul".) The consulate and Mr. Graf in particular are doing a great job here in South India being visible with their services, caring for the fellow citizens and always having an open ear in case of questions or issues. Hence, I put on my finest Oktoberfest-smile having the honour of a joint picture with the "Herr Generalkonsul" :-)
Ein Prosit (Cheers).
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