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The India
Association of New Hampshire
(IANH) hosted a cultural event
at Merrimack High School to
raise money for the tsunami
victims. Over one hundred and
fifty guests were entertained
with dances and musical
performances that lasted over
three hours. NH Senator Lou
D'Allesandro and NH
Representative Bea Franceour
graced the occasion with their
presences, and commended IANH
for the display of cultural
diversity.
Netra Rajnikanth and Nihita
Patel graciously donated snacks
and the
proceeds went to the
IANH-Tsunami fund. The event was
covered by WMUR TV
Manchester, the Nashua
Telegraph, and Lokvani.
IANH president, Prithvi Kumar
welcomed the audience. Tony
Epapharas, the Vice President of
IANH, who was at Nagercoil in
Tamil Nadu when the Tsunami
wreaked its devastation, gave
the audience a touching
description of the events. He
told those listening that
watching the after-effects of
the disaster was a very humbling
experience.
Ashish Jain and Srisai Rao
compeered the program. The
program started
with a bang when Bharatanatyam
dancer Rukmini Vijaykumar from
Bangalore,
a student at the Boston
Conservatory, performed 3
dances: Ganesha Stuti,
a Shiva Kriti and a Javali— "Mariyada
Thiliyakane". The audience was
captivated by her performance.
Rajesh Saluja, accompanied by
Parag
Shastri on the tabla, sang a
couple of Hindi film songs.
Ishita Tyagi,
Natasha Patel, and Alina Dar,
students of Nashua High North
performed two
dances.
Students of Kiranmayi Totapalli,
performed two dances in the
Kuchipudi
tradition. Two traditional Tamil
folk dances, a Kummi and a
Kolattam,
were performed by Amritha,
Meghna, Sribhavana, Pranathi,
Lekha, and
Sachi. Srisai Rao, accompanied
by his wife Suman, sang lovely
Hindi and
Telugu melodies. Ashish Jain
entertained the audience with
his jokes and
humorous couplets in both
English and Hindi.
Sandhya Sridhar and her
students, Usha Dwarakanath,
Amritha
Mangalat, Lekha Nair and Anirudh
Dwarakanath, presented a moving
tribute
to the late Smt.M.S.
Subbalakshmi, a popular
classical singer in India.
They performed beautiful songs
in different Indian languages
that were popularized by the late singer.
The grand finale was an
extremely energetic group dance
by senior students of Jasmine
Shah of the Angikam Dance
Academy,
set to the music of the song "Dholi
Taro Dhol" from the Hindi movie,
"Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam".
IANH President Prithvi Kumar and
Media Relations Director Manoj
Chaurasia distributed
participation certificates to
all the children.
IANH raised $3,000 from
donations from local residents
as a result of
the story published in Nashua
Telegraph on December 28, 2004.
This event
raised over $2,500. The IANH
executive committee will
distribute the
proceeds to organizations and
charities engaged in
rehabilitation of the
tsunami victims.
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