(Penned a week before Independence Day)

The Devon Avenue is a haven(ue) for Indians and Pakistanis. You get almost every kind of Indian stuff here. Especially if you are a desi who is living in or travelling to America, you would long to be in India ASAP. But you needn't. If you are travelling from downtown Chicago, Devon is slightly away. If you are lucky enough to stay in a north or a northwest suburb, you can have a multiple entry tourist visa to Devon Avenue once a week.

As you enter the narrow crowded street of Devon Avenue located in a north suburb of Chicago, you see, hear, smell and feel India all over. Imagine a crowded Bombay bazaar or the festive crowd at tanager in China. That's Devon. The street has parallel parking both sides and just a small space to move in with your compact cars. There are quite a few lanes that cut across to facilitate parking. It is slightly shabby by American standards. Garbage scattered all over. Bhangra music and Indi Pop mix together in the air to play a jugalbandhi for your ears and the smell of samosas and fresh Indian vegetables remind you of your Indian hometown, whichever it is. Patel Brothers is a popular shop here for grocery and chat. Though you don't get bhel puri and stuff like that, there are a couple of other North Indian joints that provide you a wide variety of chat. For South Indians who long to eat idli, vada and dosas, Arya Bhavan and Annapurna serve them well.

The highlight of Devon is there isn't a national difference of Pakistanis and Indians. They are all over and you can't make out the difference. When I was there last weekend, the Pakistanis were celebrating their Independence Day there. And to my surprise a Pakistani shop was selling Indian flags while an Indian Hindu shop was selling green Pakistani flags. Isn't that great? Amazing!

And I could see Hrithik all over the place. Kareena too. Their movie Mujhse Dosti Karoge's mega size blowups welcome you to DVD shops. All DVDs - from the old black and white Devdas to the current Devdas - are available here. Madhuri's green dress in the Maardaala song (in Devdas) is the most talked about thing.

Indians are celebrating Independence Day next week on 17th August and the expected crowd is about 30,000. A parade has been arranged and Indian celebrities are fond of this crowd. I saw pictures of Kapil Dev, Kiran Bedi and couple of other celebrities with M.F Hussain visiting an Indian bookstore. This time it is Mahima Choudhry who is the leading star of the Independence Day parade. Is Leander Paes coming too?
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