TGV
TGV aka Times Global Village: The Times Global Village is being held on 100 acres of the river bed (of river Jamuna) just near the Delhi Noida Toll bridge. This fair jointly organized by the Delhi Tourism Development Corporation, the NOIDA Toll bridge company and E-4 entertainment company and many sponsors. The event will continue till May 4, this year. It is open to visitors from 2pm till 8 pm everyday.
Concept de TGV: The Global Village is a concept that has come of age and is here to stay. It is an international fair festooned with a carnival like atmosphere. Various countries participate and set up their respective pavilions designed to reflect their heritage and culture, Shops are allotted to each pavilion whereby, a country displays its ethnic crafts. Dancers from around the world showcase their talent around the pavilions.
Global Village India promises to be a fantastic, mind blowing shopping extravaganza with lots of entertainment thrown in for the entire family.
It is a holistic package of entertainment, fun and frolic and shopping with an international flavor. Traditional crafts and folk dances of different countries are woven around the theme of culture and heritage. An ambience, Hitherto unknown, shall be created by marrying different cultures, crafts and cuisines of various countries.
Imagine the incredible spectacle of Brazilian Samba dancers, Russian ballet and Egyptian Belly dancers performing alongside Bhangra and Dandia artistes.
Handicrafts from countries as diverse as Kenya and Kuwait will be on display. Bohemian crystal from the Czech Republic to exotic Egyptian bead necklaces will please even the most die hard buyers.
Specially imparted fireworks will dazzle the night sky each day of the festival. This razzmatazz will definitely enthuse millions of visitors who flock to the Global Village.
: - http://globalvillage.in/
It already been a long day for me, as in I got up at 14:30 hrs, had the earlier plan was not put to toss I would have surely missed this extravaganza for sure, but many my friends are just like me, LAZY. So finally it was just Shiks, Piyush and me who finally made it there. Reached the venue@18:15hrs, late with respect to the standards of TGV as it had so much for us to experience and also because the ETL constraints, we just had some 2.5 hrs to explore the globe.
So, as we entered, to welcome us were the Indian Beauty – Taj Mahal (all sculpted in POP), the Eiffel Tower from as said the most romantic place on earth Paris, the mysterious and the enchanting Pyramids from land of Nile, Egypt, the leaning tower of Pisa from Italy, the Burj al-Arab, worlds first 7 start hotel from Dubai, the Petronas Tower, the worlds tallest twin tower from KL, Malaysia, and the Roman Colosseum, the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman Empire, from Rome, Italy. Aah I already felt as if had strolled down the whole world.
As we entered we did witness some folk cum traditional dance to welcome all the guests of the evening, though with my limited faculty of knowledge regarding the tradition folk dances I came to conclusion that it was probably one of the folk dance of Gujarat.
Since, just like me, others along with me were ignorant of these kind of cultural and traditional knowledge, so we just went passed the dancing troop (I acted like a moron when I dint even inquire about it, though I was not inquisitive at that point of time but I am now :( ) and headed to the first of the several country’s arena, rather crossed seven seas and landed on to Thailand :).
Though I don’t really have an eye for minute details on woman’s wear, or for ethnic bed sheets or curtains and neither for jewelry and nor for Traditional Furniture & Furnishings I was quite out of place there. Also the stall keeper looked liked Indians and just like other people around from the dress from they had put on and there fluency in Hindi. I was taken back, as I thought that at least I would get to people from other part of the globe. But, I was probably wrong there, as in later stores that they were people from other part of the world, and it was just the racial thing that the Thai people looked like us. And yeah the Thai, broomstick is much better than what we have India, as it is flat and has base as one of the side of the triangle and the opposite side it extended as the handle. Apart from that we did witness some good hand painted paintings and hand made sandal wood boxes. The beauty of these boxes was that they were simple and sober and they should really make a good visiting room artifact, may be can be just kept under the yellow light of a small lamp shade. And yeah they did have some cool looking fancy fans as used by the Japanese ladies, simple and elegant and full of colors.
Next on the visit list was Malaysia, these is where I realized that vendor people are really from Malaysia, from there attire, loosely hanging cloth dripping from there body and the flat broom hat that some were wearing. Malaya people are awesome crafts person, we did had a good time looking at the hand made wooden toys.
The miniature model of Harley Davidson was looking awesome, and also the pedal driven rickshaw was wonderful. The details were well carved out and nicely polished. Apart from these great of craft, there was a good collection of pottery and other artifacts like the one you can see just behind the bikes. These globes were carved in wood, and painted over with lead paints. The selection of colors was so that they can escape eyes of people, shiny black base and over that they had the right blend of bright colors like golden, red and orange to bring up some enchanting designs. Here, Shiks too picked flower vase for her family, it was cylindrical, covered with shiny black and over that was the use of bright orange depicting the sun rise probably in Malaysia, least to say it was beautiful. I wish I had taken a snap of that then, anyways I will get a snap from Shiks and will upload it here. Apart from those handicraft items they had a huge abundant of artificial flowers. This place was a must visit place for these artificial flower lovers, as it had a huge collection of these.
Now, enough of travel around the shops, we took our first break from our world tour and headed towards the Kulfi thela.
Piyush: “Bhaiya kulfi dena”
Vendor: “Sahab, kaun si?”
Piyush: “kaun se hai?”
Vendor: “Jal geera, XXXXXX (don’t remember), Matka Kulfi….”
Me: (First Amazed jal jeera kulfi was sothiing I haadent heard of) .. “Matka kulfi de do bhaiya”
So that was 1/3 of kulfi for each of us, and for me it was some solid food since yesterday.
Other countries we visited were Turkey + Chezk Republic. It had beautiful collection of crystal work. They looked cheap to me, compared with what I had seen as Archies gallery. And they did have some glittering jewelry shops. I did look into some of this jewelry, especially the rings and the pendants as I love the different shapes that they carve on the white metal and polish them. And also they had counter of beautiful artificial flower which were wired with small lights and at night they looked awesome.(Will post in a pic soon for this…captured one of it on Shikhs cam)
The Chinese corner was more or less deserted, so was the UK one. The next one worth mentioning was UAE.
Long hukkas was the think that fascinated me there.
Next was the Egypt.
Now for the country I liked most: South Africa. Probably the best in the lot.
Also they had earthen ware with Animals printed on them; they were really good and caught me quite well. They had practically made a wooden miniature zoo there; it was like watching shoot the lion king just in front of us. The giraffe was looking quite authentic except for the height factor. Apart from that they had some really good wooden mask; you can see one of them in the picture above.
We excused Pakistan from or busy schedule, and that was most concise thing that I could have written about the cultural diversity that what he had witnessed yesterday.
Then we headed to the eating zone, we went to the Hyderabadi House, and believe me I had one of the best Chicken Biryani + Korma I had in Noida till now. I was fabulous. In the end I did had to say “Peth bhar gaya, lekin maan nahi bhara ”
It was already 8:45 and it was time to leave back home, before leaving we did try some hands with our photographic skill to capture the whole world. Will post them as a different post may be, or will update the same, as soon I get my hands on them.
Big thanks to Piyush for going out of route to pick me up and drop me back. Thanks a lot dude.
Piyush, droped me back in Noida@Chicane where the rest of the gang members were already there (Sid, BABA and Megha A) and then it was the mad dance party + drinks party. We really did dance hard that day.
Over all a very long day … and a rocking one too. Thanks to all… and yeah thanks to the person from whose photo collection I sorted this pics (As If I cared)…. Already lots of fags today, I should quit. But would I want to?? “Tum sutta nahi peete abhi tak” .. was that the question that I am still trying to answer??
Present Mood: Pensive
Presently Listening to: In The End@Linkin Park
Labels: TGV
posted by Varun at 6:16 PM
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