ISW organized an event on May 23rd at the new India Center. The event was organized to give a tribute to the loved ones who were impacted by COVID in India. The musical evening was designed as a gesture of respect to our healthcare professionals and an expression of solidarity and unity. The program was held at the India center with a limited capacity (taking into consideration of state guidelines)
The program opened up with its title song ‘Hum Honge Kamyab’ (we all will overcome these difficult times and will be successful one day). This song was presented and sung by our very own cultural chair ‘Amita Rao and her kids Kian and Tanisha Rao’. ‘Hum Honge Kamyab - portrays a simple fable that regardless of the difficult path ahead of us, we will succeed! The simple poetry by Vasant Bapat with beautiful Marathi words - ‘Gagan Sadan Tejomay - Timir Harun Karunakar’ a prayer was sung by Dr. Vidya Bhide. Many performers, volunteers, and members have got connected to the ISW community during this pandemic. Many distant members from out of Massachusetts, out of the country; were able to be a part of our ISW community during this time when we did many live stream events. Vidya ji Bhide is no exception to this- Dr. Bhide started learning and practicing for her musical love at the age of 60+ and has been keeping herself busy with melody.
A well known Classical music teacher, an entrepreneur and a great vocalist Vandana Rao presented a nice musical rendition of the song ‘Teri Mitti’ from the movie ‘Kesari’. A group of youth artists - Nivetha, Sruthi, Sravya and Pranav offered a beautiful song from the film ‘Razi - Aye Vatan Vatan in the honor of Motherland India. This mellifluous presentation was very well appreciated by the audience. The Shrewsbury School Principal Mr. Jonathan Kelly sent a special message to those whose families / friends have been affected by COVID in India. ISW Language and Culture School students’ devotional bhajan of ‘Hey Ram’ , Mr. Ernest Gulla and Mrs. Manjula’s prayer and text from the Bible were presented to maintain the peace and serenity in the environment of these tough times. Ashita Shekhar talked about the importance of Meditation during these difficult and tough times to keep oneself positive and strong.
ISW School teacher and a passionate Hindi Poet Asha Singh recited a poem, portraying the message ‘Together we will win’. ‘काम हो अच्छे हमारे और नियत साफ हो - a lovely song on Humanity was presented by Dr. Jagan Srinivasan - A professor at WPI who is passionate about music, sports and one of the enthusiastic volunteers of ISW. The great words written by Mahatma Gandhi - ‘Vaishnav Jan To’ were rendered by Sharmishta Bera in her beautiful voice. Nisha Bawa (ISW Religious Chair) performed another sweet bhajan in the line up of the program. Nityajit Hem- a great anchor/ music maker and event manager; recited a poem written by Priya Vaidya ( An engineer by profession but a versatile artist at heart) followed by a Hindi song ‘चलो हसने की कोई वजह ढूंढते है’ (Let’s find a reason to laugh) composed and sung by Sarita Deshpande.
The musical evening was concluded by the chorus ‘We Shall Overcome’ performed by all the committee members to display Unity and Solidarity. The song lyrics were improvised by Aditi Tayler and music arrangement was done by Sarita.
Let’s all hope for the bright light at the end of this tunnel, let’s hold hands together and walk the path ahead with positivity and optimism. The program was conceptualized by Snehalata Kadam and Shiamin Melville and designed by Puneet Kohli and Sarita Deshpande.
