THEY wanted to share their culture with other people in the area.

Volunteers from the South of England Marathi Pariwar (SEMP) filled the Chandler’s Ford Methodist Church with Bombay street food stalls, games and activities on Sunday.

The annual Anand Mela event attracted more than 200 people who sampled many experiences from the Marathi culture.

Some attendees even took part in Indian cookery classes, to learn how to prepare, cook and even serve the different dishes on offer at the event.

Organiser and member of SEMP, Gloria Khamkar, was amazed by the amount of people that turned out.

“We were so pleased that so many people wanted to learn about our culture,” said Gloria.

“The best thing was not only Indian people came but lots of other ethnicities took part in cookery lessons. They wanted to learn and that was great.

“The day went really well and we got lots of great feedback. I was looking through my emails today and we had one asking when the next event was because they had such a great time.”

However. Mrs Khamkar did mention one drawback of the events popularity.

She added: “I decided to get something to eat a bit later on it the day, but the food was all gone! I couldn’t believe it, It was nice to see, but left me rather hungry.”

Another event is planned for next year and Gloria hopes even more people will attend.