Namaskar

Namaskar was the title for an evening of music, poetry, dance and Indian cuisine held in St Edmund's Church Hall on Saturday 18th June.

I am not one who is regularly involved in cultural activities and I wasn't sure what to expect from this event, but when I arrived I found the hall transformed by colourful draped materials and there was a sense of anticipation in the audience, a significant proportion of which was clearly of Asian descent. The excitement built during a slight delay as a few technical things were sorted out and late arrivals found a seat. It was certainly a full house!

The Namaskar event was organised by Leeds Faith Forum, Concord Interfaith Fellowship and South Asian Arts. The purpose was to bring together people from different cultures and faith backgrounds to share and experience a range of Indian culture and to get to know each other a little better by sharing a meal.

The cultural content started with a poetry reading and moved onto 3 presentations of North Indian classical music using the tabla, sitar and santoor. The young musicians were very professional and gradually built up a tempo to create a sound rather different from the Indian pop music you sometimes pick up from Asian radio stations in the UK. They obviously enjoyed performing in front of a live audience. Following another poetry reading, we were entertained by the Mini Bharatanatyam Dancers from South Asian Arts-UK. This is a group of young dancers who were clearly well trained and they kept going for quite a long time. The climax of the dancing was a performance of 'Universal Mother', a contemporary dance interpretation by the professional women dancers from South Asian Arts-UK. The costumes worn were very colourful and most of the movement was gentle. What I remember most was the movement of the head and eyes.

Following the entertainment, we shared a delicious Indian meal, which was generously provided by Arti Restaurant and which included vegetarian options and of course, rice. And there were lots of sweet things too. It was while queuing for and eating food that people from different cultures and faith backgrounds got to know each other better and the benefit of an interfaith event could be fully appreciated. The atmosphere was very pleasant as people relaxed and shared everyday conversation.

In his Parish Magazine article in January of this year, David, writing about Epiphany, reminded us that the message of Christ is for all people and that the church exists for the sake of those beyond it and that we are called to reach out to others. At St Edmund's we are looking at opening our church and its buildings to the community and the Namaskar event seemed to fit in with that idea. Maybe Namaskar will be repeated or at least be the precursor to other cultural and interfaith events in the future.

Geoff Barker

And Joyce Sundram writes:-

"I loved those two young boys with the turbans and the dancing was really beautiful - I've never seen anything like it - but do you know, the best part of it all for me was to be able to sit down and talk over the meal with some Asian ladies. I've never done that before."

When I heard this, I felt that the Namaskar evening had indeed been successful. It was gratifying to have such an enthusiastic audience and we are grateful to all those who attended and contributed to this success.

The initial motivation was not to raise money, but to offer hospitality and engage socially with those outside our own community.

This was only possible by the very generous support offered by the Board of Leeds Faiths Forum and Concord Interfaith Fellowship as well as Leeds City Council amongst other generous donors, who covered the cost.

We had an interesting and varied programme arranged with the expertise of Keranjeet Kaur Virdee, CE0 of South Asian Arts - UK, featuring some quite illustrious talent.

Personally, I am greatly indebted to Jocelyn Brooks of LFF for her unstinting help and computer wizardry, to Keranjeet and her staff at SAA-UK for their wonderful co-operation and outstanding creative talents and to everyone else who enabled the idea to materialise. Particular gratitude is owed for the technical management, for the manly assistance to transform the hall into an area of Eastern promise, for excavating the lino to provide a pristine stage covering for the bare-foot dancers, for the seating and tables in the hall, the purveyors of the food containers from the Arti Restaurant in Chapel Allerton, the super efficient and tireless kitchen goddesses and for the ticket sellers and the experts with mop and broom who cleared up at a breakneck rate.

My conviction is that our Christian faith requires us, wherever and whenever, to engage with those of other faith traditions for in so doing we are only following the precept and practice of Christ's example of generosity and service and truly trying to love our neighbour as ourselves.

In experiencing and appreciating the culture and worship of others, we are more likely to have a better understanding which can allay prejudice and fear and the violence that fear can inspire. From the Pope at the Assissi Peace Conference in 1986 to the present day, all the world's religious leaders, including the Archbishops of York and Canterbury, proclaim this doctrine of inter-faith accord and concord and urge us to act accordingly. Not to convert but to befriend.

Etty Hillesum, a victim of Auschwitz in her prison diary wrote, "The most essential and deepest in me is heartening to the most essential and deepest in the other. God in me to God in them." Surely we at St Edmund's can do no less?

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay - Charity Number 1131904