Celebrating Hindi

Society with Ruchi

They definitely over did it! But in a positive way. Sangeeta Pasrija and Swapan Dhariyawan worked their charm together to get a super-size house-full event to celebrate Hindi Divas (Hindi Day) on Friday December 9, 2011 at Madras Pavilion in Sugarland, Texas.

India Culture Center Houston (ICC) and International Hindi Association (IHA) organized an evening of poetry and fun with the goal to preserve and promote India’s national language Hindi. It was an absolutely inspiring evening with a predominantly mature audience that truly appreciated the language and satire.

The crowd was convinced that by hosting such cultural events along with IHA the community will be able to establish a growing interest in Indian culture and the organization’s efforts are to constantly establish Hindi related programs and invite Hindi writers, philosophers and poets. One of the poets appreciated the opportunity to recite his work and informed that this was the first time in many years that ICC made the extra effort to promote their local Houston based talents.

“The purpose of the event was to celebrate ‘Hindi Divas’ in a way that Hindi is promoted and the culture is kept alive through a language,” says Sangeeta Pasrija.

“Swapan Dhairyavan joined IHA upon my request last year even though he has been helping me right from the very beginning, the first Kavi-Sammelan of IHA was done under the ICC umbrella,” she added.

After a scrumptous dinner the guests enjoyed a relaxed evening of kavita (poetry) mostly satire inspired with Indian and US politics. Attendees cheered and laughed at the satirical words on India’s politicians and the growing corruption. “What a great way to enjoy a cold evening with the perks of poetry with politics,” says an attendee. Sangeeta as usual looked sophisticated and pretty in a blue churridar making sure everything was perfect for the evening.

Abha Dwivedi, the emcee for the evening, had a great command over the language. Also present at the event prominent Arun Prakash who teaches Hindi at Bellaire High School. Sangeeta informed that some of the poets were from yester-years when these kind of events were more prevalent but mostly hosted on a smaller scale and usually at someone’s house. “They seemed to be thrilled with this revival and chance to recite their poems. They have called me insisting on finding out the date for the next such program, and that feels great,” says Sangeeta.

Spotted applauding and enjoying this poetic affair Dinesh Singal, Surender Talwar, Bobby Singh, Swatantra Jain, Indo-American News’ Jawahar Malhotra, Gitesh Desai, Naseer Alam and many other supporters of the Hindi language.

For all you Hindi poetry lovers do mark your calender for the Annual Kavi-Sammelan event scheduled to be on 29th April, 2012 with three prominent poets from India.