by Tanu Nekenti 8th Grade Oak Middle School, Shrewsbury, MA

Hi everyone, my name is Tanu Nekenti and I’m here to tell you exactly what happened last Sunday! If you didn’t already know, India Society of Worcester (ISW) and Spirit of Shrewsbury (SOS) joined hands to create an awesome event! It’s called Shrewsbury’s Got Talent (SGT) and it took place past Sunday.

Let me tell you a little bit about ISW and SOS first. ISW’s purpose is to encourage people with ancestral origin in India or people who are otherwise interested in India, to form an effective group with the objective of fostering the cultural heritage of India. SOS was organized to celebrate the heritage of Shrewsbury, every year they organize many events in the Fall season. Both, ISW, and SOS, share a common goal, that is to serve their community. ISW and SOS worked very hard to come up with SGT, the virtual style! There were three very accomplished judges to judge the competition, Maria Smith, Ekta Jain, and Bhuvana Ganesh.  They did a spectacular job with the judging, though I know it must have been very hard for them, as all the performances were absolutely magnificent! There were many contestants performing too, including, kids and adults of all ages.

 As mentioned earlier that the contestants brought an amazing talent to this one-of-a-kind platform. Since it was a contest, the judges identified these gems from the participants. The winners in the 9 and below category were Sucheth Mahesh and Kian Rao. In the 9-12 category, the winning medals went to Madelyn Schwab, Anthony Fuzaylov and Aadi Jagannathan. In the 13-17 yrs age category, Adele Fuzaylov, Sruthelaya Mohan and Tanushree Nekenti were the 3 finalists. In the 18+ category Priya Balu and Avni Chheda earned the winning places.

The emcees were Tanushree Nekenti, Arin Gupta, and Tanvi Gahlot. Thank you to the emcees for doing this!  Congratulations everyone, the contestants and the winners. All of you are winners and did great!

And lastly, I want to thank Rekha Gupta, Smita Manjrekar, Sarita Deshpande and Amita Aunty who worked for ISW cultural committee and Suresh Gupta and Sakshi Gurao who represented Spirit of Shrewsbury for putting this all together!