Woman This Month sat down with Mala Kumar, wife to the Indian Ambassador in Bahrain and all-round India enthusiast, to talk about her plans to bring the culture and vibrancy of her home country to the people of Bahrain.
If Mala Kumar is anything to go by, a visit to India should become a must on everyone’s checklist. She is a wonderful combination of colour and energy and she speaks about her home country with real exuberance.
“We have just got so much to offer in terms of art, music, dance, food, clothes and jewellery,” Mala exclaims, “India is an amazing country. The simply vast richness and heritage that we have is astonishing and I feel we should show it more and more. India is an emerging power — it is a ‘soft power’ as my husband would say.”
In a bid to share India’s greatness, Mala, along with a couple of other India-enthusiasts, has embarked on a mission to showcase India in the Middle East. This mission is taking the form of a series of lavish events, collectively known as Irresistible India, designed to give guests a total immersion in Indian culture.
Mala plans to start the series with a real bang. The first event, which will have just taken place when this magazine hits the shops, is a luxurious evening of food, music and dancing. Guests to the first Irresistible India gala will have dined on a sumptuous four-course meal, which blends traditional and modern Indian cuisine. They will also have had the opportunity to watch two exciting dance troupes — one a Rajisthani folk group and the other a Bollywood troupe from Mumbai. And finally, they will have danced the night away as DJ Benson from Dubai spun a mix of modern and Bollywood tunes.
The main idea, according to Mala, is to allow people to discover the lesser known aspects of Indian culture. “People in Bahrain love Bollywood, which is great, of course. It is already so popular that it is what people think of when they think of India, but there is so much else too,” Mala explains. “The Indian cuisine that most of the restaurants in Bahrain serve is usually the butter chickens and the tandooris”, she says, “but people should try something else.
The food from other parts of India like Gujarat, Goa, Andhra Pradesh are very different. They use different spices and it would be nice for people to come and eat this and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this was also Indian’.”
“After this first event,” says Mala, “who knows? I want to showcase the full extent of the culture of India. We are hoping to bring in contemporary art and then have some more traditional music too, with well-known stalwarts in Indian music. We might bring in some stand-up comedians, theatre and perhaps have a culinary festival. I have big plans!”
I asked Mala how the idea for Irresistible India came about and why it is so important to her to bring India to the people of Bahrain. “It all started with a private sari show that I did at home for the Jusoor programme, led by the wife of Bahrain’s foreign minister, Shaikha Wesal. It was a gathering of prominent Bahraini ladies and diplomats’ wives. It was to show them that saris are not just worn in one way and that, even though they are traditional dress, they can also be stylish and timeless. Many people didn’t know that there was a sari of nine yards. The Italian ambassador’s wife volunteered to have a sari draped on her in the traditional style. People were fascinated because they thought it was all stitched, but it’s not, it’s all folded and draped in a matter of minutes,” describes Mala. “After this event, I teamed up with Renuka from La Bonn V and Irwin Rego, because we share the same passion for our country and it became our joint venture to produce the Indian gala evening”
It isn’t just this passion which has spurred Mala on to creating the Irresistible India series, though. She feels that the Middle East and India have a special bond, which shouldn’t go overlooked. “There is such a huge population of Indians in the Middle East, especially here. Bahrain has been strongly influenced by Indian culture for many centuries,” Mala explains. “Bahrainis eat a lot of Indian food, a lot of people are familiar now with the mainstream music of India. Bahrain imports a lot of textiles and embroidery from India — a lot of the kaftans that you see are actually made in India”.
There is also a sense that India is inextricably tied to the progress in the Middle East. Mala agrees: “Indians have contributed a lot to the development of the Middle East.
I think that Bahrain is one of the countries where Indians enjoy a lot of respect, for their intelligence, their work ethic and their contribution to the economy. It is my delight to strengthen this bond and this relationship.”
We, as well as Mala, are very excited to see how the Irresistible India series develops. Be sure to keep an eye out for upcoming events, because they are sure to be lavish, colourful, enlightening and a whole load of fun.
