As I get out of the car in the large car park of the Convention Center in Novi, it almost seems I am somewhere in Pakistan for there is a stream of men, women and children in their Sunday best walking towards one of the huge halls. Three teenage girls, dressed in dark green outfits with large Pakistani flags in their hands, form an interesting sight.

The occasion is the Independence Day mela. The festivities are normally scheduled for August 14 if it falls on a Saturday. The next option is a Saturday preceding or following the Independence Day but this time the mela is held on the last Saturday before Ramazan.

I am told that the mosque at the Islamic Association of Greater Detroit is the venue of sumptuous iftar, particularly at weekends. The place is pretty large and quite often wedding parties, following nikkah, are also held there.

Back to Novi, at the entrance we buy the admission ticket and are given small replicas of the Pakistani flag to pin on our shirts. Inside there are play areas for the kids and a section for food, where the stalls seem to be doing quite well. The shopping area is dominated by stalls selling colourful shalwar-kameez, one of which also sells jewellery; women manning those stalls have no respite. With Eid-ul-Fitr round the corner, the sales seem to be pretty good.

TCF-USA and the Women’s wing of the Pakistan Association of America have set up their stalls too. The latter is helping not too well educated Pakistani women in Michigan who are looking for gainful employment.

The stall which attracts my attention sells music CDs. It offers a wide fare – from Mehdi Hasan and Abida Parveen to ditties from the latest Bollywood movies. Balbir Paul, who runs a wholesale business of music CDs, movie DVDs and magazines from both sides of the Great Divide, is from a border village in Amritsar district. “My house is at a hand-waving distance from the Pakistani frontier,” he says. “I import a lot of Urdu magazines from Karachi and Lahore… I have visited both these cities,” he enthuses.

The food stalls have many more customers by 2pm. They include a Sardarji who is a regular visitor to the two PAA melas, the second one is held on or around 23rd March. The association holds an Eid-e-Milad function too. A lady from Sahiwal serves us spicy tikkas and kababs. It’s only later that I see a biryani outlet run by boys from Bombay. Their stall makes no mention of Mumbai. I am told that a Pakistani singer Ahmed Jahanzeb, who is currently on a performing tour of the US, is to perform in the evening, but I have some other plans so I decide to call it a day.

Before I leave I run into Adil Akhtar, President of the Pakistan Association of America, who is among the top oncologists in the US. “I am a DOW graduate,” he says proudly. I am told that he is also a fine artist, a fact which I am willing to confirm for I see his paintings displayed outside his office at the Beaumont Troy Hospital, where he is the chief oncologist. His canvases are done in acrylics. They are in bright colours but they convey his thoughts effectively. Adil doesn’t believe in decorative art. “You convey your thoughts and your feelings through your pen.  I use my paint brush to do the same,” he comments. He has held two exhibitions, once in Grand Rapids (Michigan) and the second time in New York.

Talking about the PAA, he says its raison d’etre is twofold. “We bring Pakistanis closer socially and we also help the needy among them,” he elaborates. With the help of other physicians from the country of his origin, Adil runs Huda Clinic, where Pakistanis, irrespective of their caste and creed, are provided medical treatment. They are the ones who can’t afford to buy health insurance.

In as many as five mosques in Michigan, the PAA runs health education programmes and of late with the collaboration of American Cancer Society it has been holding cancer screenings once a month. If the experiment proves successful cancer screening will be done in more mosques, within and outside Michigan.

I am informed that the PAA also helps charities doing a commendable job in the remote areas of Pakistan in cash and kind. DrAdil Akhtar is also the Medical Director of a hospice in Detroit.

As he steps out of his office to see me off he mentions casually that his favourite subject is art history and he studies it avidly. “Where do you get the time to do all this?”

“I sleep for only four hours at night,” comes the answer. That’s his quota of sleep. How lucky! I can’t settle for less than seven. What about you?

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