Vaisakhi in Vancouver
The thousands of faces streaming through the streets at this year’s annual Vancouver Vaisakhi parade were a little more multicoloured than usual, according to many delighted members of the Sikh community.”I see different faces. Mainstream communities, ethnic communities such as the Chinese and Koreans, Filipinos, and I’ve seen a few Italians,” said Daljit Sidhu, president of the Punjabi Market Association, at the parade on Saturday.
“I think they were enjoying what we were offering them. The music, the food, the sunshine, and it’s a time for them to mingle and enjoy the bhangra beat. That’s what it’s all about.”
The irresistible drone of the tabla could indeed be heard reverberating from sidewalk-stages at every point along the parade route, which started at the Ross Street Temple and closed sections of Marine Drive, Main Street, 49th Avenue, Fraser Street and 57th Avenue.
In the middle of the celebration, parade organizer and Ross Street Temple president Kashmir Dhaliwal estimated attendance was approaching 200,000.
“All the streets are packed,” he said of the annual religious procession, which began just after 11 a.m. and ended around 5 p.m.
Mayor Sam Sullivan made a splash at the main stage just after 1 p.m. with a speech made entirely in Punjabi, the native language of many of the Sikhs who come out to celebrate Vaisakhi.
“I said a quote from the Guru Gobind Singh,” explained Sullivan after his address, which met with loud cheers and applause from the tightly packed, colourfully costumed crowd.
The parade is part of a 48-hour religious ceremony to mark the start of Khalsa, which means pure in Punjabi, and marks the anniversary of the first baptism of Sikhs in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh.
“[Guru Gobind Singh] is the one who started the gift of Khalsa,” said Sullivan, who has been studying Punjab for the last three years. “The first quote I read was one where he said ‘those who love, only they can obtain God,’ and the other quote was . . . ‘read the whole human race as one.’”
Vancouver police could not give an estimate or confirm the organizers’ attendance estimates Saturday night, but spokeswoman Jana McGuinness said the concentration of people was on the levels seen during the popular annual summer Celebration of Light fireworks displays in Vancouver.