EAT, PRAY, LOVE
by Jennifer Zeigler
In just three weeks, San Antonio convention officials helped pull
together a festival fit for an Islamic prince — and 40,000 of his devoted
followers.
The first call from the Ismaili Council for the United States was simple. The group needed space for
about 6,000 people - a relatively small gathering for San Antonio's 1.3-million-square-foot Henry B.
Gonzalez Convention Center. Members of the Islamic sect would gather at the convention center in
April for a three-day religious celebration where they would visit with each other, pray, dance, and
wrap things up with an appearance by their spiritual leader, His Highness the Aga Khan.
The only snag was the timeline: The Ismaili Council needed the entire event produced in just three
weeks. And they'd already been turned down by facilities in Houston and Dallas. Could San Antonio's
convention team - led by Convention, Sports, and Entertainment Facilities Director Michael Sawaya handle the request?
With a food show already scheduled for the last day the council wanted the convention center - and
with the center and the neighboring Alamodome hosting the 2008 NCAA Final Four basketball
tournament the weekend before the celebration's April 11 kick-off date - it would take some juggling.
But San Antonio's answer was never in doubt: "Of course."
"From a facilities standpoint," Sawaya said, "we weren't concerned at all." The convention center and
the Alamodome have seen much larger groups, he noted - including some 80,000 people for this
year's Final Four. Despite the book-ended events already scheduled for the facilities, they were
convinced they could squeeze in this little group.
Then news of the event began spreading among the Ismaili faithful, and that small gathering of 6,000
mushroomed into 40,000.
'A Very Important Physical Event'
The Aga Khan Golden Jubilee Celebration in San Antonio had its roots in France, the home of the Aga
Khan, Prince Karim Aga Khan, who is imam, or spiritual leader, to the world's tens of millions of
Ismaili Muslims - a subset of Shia Muslims who believe the Aga Khan is a direct descendent of Prophet
Muhammad. The current Aga Khan assumed his title in 1957, when his grandfather died; Britain's
Queen Elizabeth bestowed the royal "His Highness" title on him that same year.
The year 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the Aga Khan's ascension to his position - his golden
jubilee. Ismailis traditionally spend an entire year commemorating the jubilees of their imams with
public celebrations, according to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), the philanthropic arm of
the Ismaili community. Ismailis, while concentrated in India, Pakistan, and parts of Africa, are also
scattered throughout dozens of countries, and they come together at these prayer-filled festivals to
meet up with friends and family they may not have seen in years.
"When we started dealing with [the Ismaili Council], they said it was a family reunion," Sawaya said.
"And it was - there were lots of family reunion-type events," including dancing, poetry reading, and
mountains of food served over the three days. Ray Halani, a San Antonio Ismaili whose day job is
general manager of the nearby Riverwalk Plaza Hotel, had family and friends in from Canada for the
event. He said: "We were meeting people that we haven't seen in years." But the prayers, dancing,
and food are just the sideshow. The golden jubilee celebrations culminate in an appearance by the Aga
Khan; according to Halani, Ismaili Muslims have a mandate to seek an audience with the Aga Khan at
least once in their lifetimes.
In fact, the Sunday morning of the event, four ambulances pulled up to the Alamodome to off-load
bedridden Ismailis who felt that seeing the Aga Khan was too important to miss. "For any member of
the Ismaili community, a physical presence with the spiritual leader is something to strive for," says
Mansoor Saleh, an Atlanta physician who also heads up the Ismaili Council's portfolio, or committee,
for publications and communications. "So, to have the leader come to you and give you an audience is
a very important physical event with spiritual connotations. But you also get to meet all these other
members of the community who have the same belief and ethic. You come to learn the importance of
faith in one's life."
Last spring, the Aga Khan set off for some 35 countries to meet with his followers. The San Antonio
trip - from Friday, April 11, to Sunday, April 13 - was part of an American tour that brought him to
three other U.S. cities as well: Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta. He greeted more than 10,000
Ismailis in each location.
An official guest of each state's governor, the Aga Khan maintained a brisk schedule dictated by his
obligations and those of the political officials with whom he planned to meet. By the time all those
schedules jelled, Saleh said, there were just three weeks left for on-the-ground planning.
God Is in the Little Details
Not surprisingly, organizers on both sides of the event say that time was the biggest challenge and
toughest taskmaster. "Normally," Sawaya said, "with an event you have three years, not three
weeks." Added Saleh: "Obviously we would have liked to have had more time" - which would have
bought the group better rates on rental fees and food. "But considering," Saleh said, "I think things
went very well."
Adding to the challenge was the volunteer nature of the Ismaili Council's organizational structure.
While the group has some paid administrative staff members who dealt with the financing end of the
event, all the planning was done by volunteers. Even the first phone call to Sawaya's team came from
a volunteer: Ashraf Ramji, a Houston attorney. To help compensate for the time crunch,
representatives from the council's many organizing committees - handling security, first aid, food, and
so on - moved into the convention center so that convention staffers could check in with them on a
daily basis. During that time, Sawaya's staff met with entire committees to decide what needed to be
done, something the convention staff says was a departure from more traditional events where they'd
meet with just a handful of representatives from the client.
"Things were changing every day," Sawaya said. Most especially that meant the numbers. As word
spread through various Internet message boards that the Aga Khan was set to make a four-city swing
through the United States, Sawaya's phone kept ringing. The original group of 6,000 turned into
10,000. Then 20,000. Then as many as 40,000. "The Aga Khan hadn't visited [the United States] in
20 years," Sawaya said. "Every time we'd speak to planners, the numbers would go up."
That translated into details large and small. For one thing, Sawaya said, the look of the facilities was
very important. The Ismaili Council wanted drapes and chandeliers hung, and both the convention
halls and parts of the Alamo-dome needed to be covered in white carpet - 500,000 square feet in all.
"Muslims pray by sitting on the floor," Saleh said, "and if you sit for several hours, you can imagine, I
don't think anyone could sit on a hard floor like that."
The carpet also helped cushion the tens of thousands of bare feet that trod over it throughout the
weekend. Islamic tradition requires that people remove their shoes when they're inside a sacred
building, which the convention center was converted into for daily prayers. When attendees arrived,
they each received a bottle of water and a bag for their shoes. "I have never, in any building I've run,
allowed people to walk around without any shoes on," Sawaya said. "But you have to be
understanding of the culture, and you have to accommodate for it."
Footwear wasn't the only safety concern. Both the convention center and the Alamodome had hosted
dignitaries before - including President George H.W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld but in those cases the U.S. Secret Service handled security. For the Aga Khan's golden jubilee, public
safety was a hodgepodge of anyone Sawaya's staff could grab - state and local police, Texas Gov. Rick
Perry's personal security detail, and even some of the 7,000 volunteers the Ismaili Council provided to
make sure the event went smoothly.
Volunteers staffed 35 metal detectors at the entrances to the hall in which the Aga Khan would appear
on the last day of the celebration. The council's security team even made Sawaya go through a metal
detector - twice. They swept for bombs before the doors opened, and collected cameras and cell
phones from everyone in attendance, because for the event the inside of the convention center
became an Ismaili Jamatkhana, or house of worship, where photography is prohibited. "What amazes
me is, it's not the Secret Service," Sawaya said. "It's all volunteers. With 7,000 volunteers, you just
have to stay out of the way."
That's par for the course at any Ismaili event. "Our community," Halani said, "is wholly based on
volunteerism." Members routinely volunteer for fundraisers that send money back to the AKDN, which
runs educational and development projects in Third World nations. Two of Halani's guests who came in
from Toronto ended up being put to work. One served meals while the other ushered the multitudes
into the giant hall where the Aga Khan spoke. "You can imagine with 40,000 people," Halani said, "you
need to make sure they get in the right line."
There were 275 members of the convention staff who worked during the jubilee celebration, some of
them staying round-the-clock through the weekend. And they say they couldn't have pulled off the
event without the help of the volunteers. In addition to handling security, volunteers designed and
built - and then tore down - the 22-foot-high stage set that served as the focal point of the activities,
with support from Freeman, the event's decorator. Volunteers also handed out water bottle after
water bottle over the three days. In a culture that forbids alcohol, the preferred drinks that weekend
were water and the ever-flowing spicy masala tea, which kept the entire community running on
caffeine. Volunteers stationed themselves at the airport to make sure the travel-weary found their way
to the convention center. They even kept the bathrooms tidy during the two hours that convention
staff had to leave the facility while the Aga Khan was present, because no one was allowed in the hall
with him who was not an Ismaili Muslim.
That part in particular was difficult for Sawaya's team. "We're not used to doing that," Sawaya said.
"We're used to keeping a pretty good eye on the bathrooms" - which, he noted, were in remarkably
good shape when staffers were allowed back in.
Currying Favor
Just as the convention staff was wowed by the Ismaili Council's volunteer pool, the Ismailis were
deeply impressed by the convention staff - especially the kitchen team's ability to create the foods
their religion and culture demanded, even down to the exact color they wanted the rice dyed. At most
venues, the council outsources food service to caterers who are more familiar with the Ismailis'
Indian-influenced cuisine. But in San Antonio, they didn't have to.
Chef Jeffrey Magatagan, vice president of culinary operations at the RK Group, the convention
facilities' catering partner, had connected with a representative from New York-based Rajbhog Foods
during a convention center event for Asian hotel owners that happened to be meeting when the first
representatives from the Ismaili Council came to San Antonio to start planning. Magatagan says the
Ismailis were impressed with the spread he put out for the Asian hotel owners, and began to consider
letting his staff handle the food for the golden jubilee. He knew Rajbhog could provide the many
ingredients that weren't available in San Antonio's Mexican-oriented food supply houses. For example,
Magatagan said, there's no Halal meat in San Antonio. And, in the weeks leading up to the jubilee, he
bought every grain of basmati rice in Texas, and still only came up with 2,600 pounds. The rest, along
with cookies, naan bread, and specially butchered Halal meat, came from Rajbhog.
Now Magatagan just needed to figure out how he could prepare and serve 200,000 meals in 60 hours.
The Alamodome is flanked by two commercial kitchens - one for the convention center, the other for
the dome itself. Magatagan would use them, along with an impromptu prep kitchen he established in
the convention center. But still, he'd need more space. His solution? He set up makeshift work
kitchens in the backs of the tractor-trailers trucks that delivered tons of supplies from New York. They
became Magatagan's home for the weekend. Cooking for the final dinner, which would be served after
the Aga Khan's appearance on Sunday, began at 2 a.m. the morning before. Cooks took turns for 27
straight hours stirring 6,700 pounds of basmati rice that had been dyed pink and gold. One volunteer
was assigned to make the 2,100 gallons of tea attendees sipped over three days. Council organizers
also wanted a hot meal for the 12,000 to 15,000 attendees who arrived on Friday and would be
socializing in the Alamodome after prayers. Saturday brought boxed breakfasts and lunches, then a
buffet in the evening. Then came Sunday - the date of the Aga Khan's appearance. The doors wouldn't
open until 4 a.m., and the imam himself wouldn't take the stage until 10 a.m., but attendees began
lining up at 2 a.m. After the visit, Magatagan's crew and volunteers served a multicourse dinner, with
30,000 attendees queuing up at 100 buffet stations set up around the Alamodome. "
It took them three hours for everyone to get over the highway," Magatagan said, referring to the
covered walkway that connects the convention center and the Alamodome. "It looked like something
out of Moses."
When it was all over and attendees had cleared out - with boxed lunches for the road home Magatagan said, "it looked like a hurricane [had come through]." But the experience was invaluable,
even if he's blocked out the steamy, rice-stirring parts. "If I never smell curry again, I'll be okay,"
Magatagan said. "But I won't say a bad thing about it. This was all out of our comfort zone, [but] I did
learn a lot about Indian food."
That was one of the real benefits for everyone involved in hosting the Aga Khan Golden Jubilee
Celebration. Convention staffers say they felt privileged that such a prominent figure in Islamic culture
spent time in their facilities. "We're lucky to have an event like that here," Sawaya said. "It was good
to see a different religion and how they respect their leader. When you start understanding their
leader and his importance, it was an honor to have them here."
The $3 million in bills payable sent out - not including security fees - doesn't hurt either. But mostly,
Sawaya is proud of what his staff pulled off in three short weeks. "To me," he said, "it set a different
standard on an event we can produce."