HUMRAHEE

SUMMARY OF PAST EVENTS

August 2022 Update

Twenty members of Humrahee gathered together on their regular fourth Saturday afternoon for a relaxing session of Chair Yoga with ISW’s own Alka Mehta leading with instruction. She taught the group many techniques including “Smell the roses and blow the candles” pranayama. The members enjoyed the session and thanked Alkaji for her yoga guidance with many committing to doing it every day. Humrahee also welcomed three new members who joined the group. The group followed the session with hot chai and coffee accompanied with medhu wada and samosas. Members continued with playing carrom, chess and cards followed by a session of Anthakshari, jokes and singing. As Saturday afternoon well spent!

June 2022 Update

A packed room of Humrahee members intently listened to the numbers being called out by Raj of eternal Health, as they scanned their Bingo cards for a match. The tension was palpable as folks waited for the next person to call Bingo. The entertaining session was sponsored by eternal Health, who also provided several prizes from yoga mats to T shirts and carry bags. The group continued their chatting over snacks and tea, also a treat from the sponsor. Following the break, ISW Symphony, in its effort to promote culinary arts, staged a food demo, Summer Snacks and Chutneys, with four of its members demonstrating various savory snacks consisting of stuffed pinwheels, chaat, poha, and chutneys which the Humrahee audience got to sample. Thanks to Sarita Deshpande for organizing and Nina Sehgal, Beena Krishnan, Priya Vaidya and Vaishali Amin for the delicious demos.

May 2022 Update by Pravin Trivedi

We held this meeting as usual on May 28th, the fourth Saturday of the month and it was attended by eleven members. We urge more people to join us. It is a lively group and needs encouragement and ideas for future activities.

We extended a warm welcome to two new members, Anil and Jyotsna Mhatre, who attended for the first time. Sharat bhai introduced the new members and gave a brief background and history of the Humrahee group. In the early days, a few years ago, there were three or four people who used to meet in one room. It soon grew and met in larger places like school rooms, our own modest building and now in the new India Center where we can hold programs and cater food for a couple of hundred people. As a welcoming mood, everyone present introduced themselves and the meeting started well. While normal meeting time is from 1 to 4 pm, we had people still chatting well after that. The meeting ended with our faces full of delectable samosas and vadas and traditional sauces followed by tea and coffee.

We also have volunteers for many activities. In general, if you have a need or see someone who needs help, just call ISW and we will make help available. Our next major activity is volunteer appreciation day. This and other regular activities are always on the ISW website.

April 2022 Update by Pravin Trivedi

It was another super get together on an early mild spring and sunny day with music in the air. It looked like we may not have enough people attending but slowly the India Center filled up. We were about fifteen people in the gathering.

Sharat introduced the cast and we were listening to a karaoke session from the dynamic duo of Nityajit (our own ISW’s Kishore Kumar) and Narayanji. Wonderful melodies like “Mere sapano ki Rani” got the crowd in a festive mood. There is nothing like singing to make everyone compete and soon we had the audience participating and contributing. Narayan sang a beautiful duet with his lovely young daughter and we even had Vijay and Raju come up from the audience and croon us. Sharat brought the show to an end with a Raj Kapoor duet with Narayan, the evergreen “Mera Juta hai Japani”.

Snacks followed, with tea, coffee, idli sambaar and sweet muffins. What more do you want on a beautiful day like this?

March 2022 Update by Pravin Trivedi

Growing to be a senior gracefully is what the Humrahee group excels in. Under the keen care of Sharatbhai Amin the group met on Saturday 26th March at the new improved and renovated India Society We had not met during the pandemic and also followed by the renovation work at the center. The afternoon was busy with entertainment provided by our energetic young volunteers from IYG with music, songs and jokes. It was a mixture of modern Indian and current western songs and followed by some discussions between the audience and the youth.

As it gains popularity the group asked for suggestions to name themselves. Vigorous discussion followed and it will continue. One suggestion was “The Humrahee Wanderers”. To be continued.

The group was also asked to consider making a program of half hour to an hour that can be offered to local seniors on how the Indian youth is assimilating in and melding in the local culture. Are we Indians in the US mixed up or are we citizens of the world This will be considered in the next meeting. There are Senior Centers in Shrewsbury and Northborough that would love a morning or afternoon devoted to such an event. Humrahee members will continue this topic in their next agenda.

Of course no Humrahee meeting concludes without snacks or a meal. Sharatbhai provided tea and coffee to go with Samosa and Chick Pea chat to round off the event with the IYG volunteers serving the Humrahee members. I wonder if any of them were looking forward to the time when they would be a Humrahee!!!