Subhajit Sengupta was standing onstage in front of about 200 people. He was singing a song half the crowd couldn’t understand, but they tapped their feet to the beat anyway.
The other half of the crowd in the Santa Fe College gymnasium at the Jai Ho India Fest on Saturday knew the song well; “Yeh Dil Na Hota Bechchara,” from the 1967 movie “Jewel Thief,” is a Bollywood classic.
The festival, which attracted more than 2,000 people, represented one goal of the India Culture & Education Center’s mission: to share the Indian culture with outsiders.
Its other mission is to serve those like Sengupta in Gainesville’s Indian community.
India Fest is the center’s biggest fundraiser and provides the funds to help Indian immigrants lost in American culture.
Volunteers from the Indian Cultural and Education Center worked with students from Eastside High School’s culinary program to serve more than 10 different authentic Indian dishes.
They had all the staples: Samosas, chutney and chicken curry.
In the parking lot adjacent to the gym, Dimitri Blondel, a non-Indian UF graduate student, was shoveling food from a Styrofoam plate into his mouth with a plastic fork.
“I like the singing and dancing — the cultural part,” he said.
Then he gave away the real reason he was there: “I love the Indian food.”
