MyBindi Awards
By Unnati Gandhi

It was a red-carpet affair but the dominating colour of the night was, without a doubt, brown.

"I haven't seen this many Indian people since Loblaws had a sale for homogenized milk," said actor slash comedian, Jazz Mann.

Mann, 29, was on stage at the Phoenix Concert Theatre presenting the award for favourite musician Thursday at the third annual MyBindi Awards. Favourite South Asian musician, that is.
MyBindi, as in www.mybindi.com, is a unique web site that caters to thousands of young South Asians across North America. "The South Asian community continues to push the boundaries of success in Canada," said Manisha Bawa, 30, one of the co-founders of the web site. "We're here to recognize that."

The 700-person crowd was nowhere near representative of the websiteís 20,000 members. It was these members that nominated and voted online on everyone from their favourite actor to the most committed community organization, making the MyBindi Awards - with the help of volunteers and corporate sponsors like RBC Royal Bank and Rogers AT&T -one of the glitziest of its kind for young, Canadian South Asians.

Co-founders Bawa, her husband Sandeep Bawa, and Charles Smid launched MyBindi in February of 2000. It was initially created to help young couples network and plan South Asian weddings. Since then, it has grown into a strong community. It hosts several message boards, monthly events like MyBindi Thursdays that draw out nearly 1,000 people, and hundreds of arts, entertainment, and lifestyle articles.

"You can say that the three of us are MyBindi's co-founders, but we really didn't found it," said Smid, 30. "It developed into its own because we built it based on the request of our users.

And being based in Toronto has made it that much more successful.

"Toronto is such a great place for this. You just have to be here, where Indian people donít hate each other - it's not like Vancouver," said Mann. "You're all part of the same family."

With the web site getting almost 1.2 million views a month, Smid said, "We saw a huge improvement in the reaction we got from everyone this year; we didn't have to do as much convincing [to get people to support us]. It's not MyWhat? anymore. It's MyBindi."

MyBindi Awards SIDEBAR
By Unnati Gandhi

Special guests like the Weather Networkís Karen Johnson, Global Television's Robin Gill, RnB vocal group In Essence, DJ Baba Khan, Flow 93.5 personality "Hollywood" Rich Fagon, RnB singer Chhaya, MuchMusic personality Ed the Sock, and United Kingdom's Soca artist S.W. Storm attended the third annual MyBindi Awards at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on Nov. 6, 2003.

Members of the online community voted for these winners:

Favourite Band or Musical Act: Lal
Favourite Musician: Jugular
Best Actor: Pragna Desai
Favourite Singer/Songwriter: Deesha
Favourite Media Personality: Mo-D (OMNI)
Best DJ: Jiten
Favourite Dance Troupe: Menaka Thakkar
Best Stage Production: Punjabi's in Canada for the Promotion of Arts and Culture - Atma Punjab Dee (Soul of Punjab)
Quality Special Events Production: SJD Group -Heart and Stroke Foundation Hearts of Light Gala
Most Committed Community Organziation: Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention