Open forum at Leuva Patidar Convention 2006 - Bridging the Gap

George Brown Convention Center, Houston, 7/10/2006

Duration 1h 28m 52s

Among many conventions I attend Leuva Patidar Samaj (LPS) has impressed me in their desire to address the issues in no nonsense manner.

Open forum is very popular session scheduled for 90-120 minutes. The youth and parents are asked in advance to submit their questions and concerns. Generally the youth do a good job of collecting the questions and coming up with 10-15 specific questions.

While there is a panel on the stage to address the issue floor is open for comments and questions. This session is held at the main ball room and room is always packed to full capacity.

I moderated this session (my second time)
Panelist were:
Mukesh Mowji (California)
Ketan Patel
Poonam Patel
Jayrambhai Patel (India)


Some of the issues discussed:

Why do we Leuva have a reputation of partying & drinking.
Why do parents pressure youth to get married?
Why do parents compare youth to other children?
Why do parents pressure youth to become a doctor or a lawyer?
Why do we have to have big wedding - should it be what the youth wants or what parents want?
What about youth who after a very expensive wedding decides that he/she did not want to marry that person in the first place.
If the parents do not know their own children how can good old system of arranged marriage work?
When and how should the parents talk to their youth about sex, alcohol or drugs?
Why we as a samaj lookdown upon dating and sex, when that happens to be going on underground anyways?