Patidar Cultural Association of USA held its Silver Jubilee Celebration at the Cedar Garden Banquet Hall, 661 US Highway 33, Hamilton, NJ 08619 on Sunday, November 13rd, 2011.
From 3 p.m. to almost midnight, the fast paced, event studded, well timed, informative and entertaining program set the bar high for all future cultural events. The nicely decorated hall was full to capacity with over eight hundred and fifty guests. Several members of association from other US states were amongst the honored guests.
As people were registering themselves, they were given a name tag with their current town in the US and original town in India. The name tags were a very welcome touch. You did not have to try hard and remember faces and names… "Of course, I know you… you are…??
A warm welcoming speech was given by Rajeshree Govani who also introduced four other speakers Haresh Kaneriya, Sanjay Jagani, Neha Dadhania, Julie Kansagra. All speeches were brief and focused on the content.
The program started on schedule, with appetizers, pakodas, mango lassi and soft drinks. Efficient use of the time was made with the food, speeches and introductions running concurrently...
An Aarti to Umiya Mataji started the events on a spiritual note. Aarti was headed by the events grand sponsors Sudha & Pravin Ardeshna and Trupti & Mayur Kaneria, who were joined by outstanding behind the scene volunteers.
The US and Indian National anthems, sung by very young folks holding the two flags of the origin and adopted domiciles and supported by the audience followed and we were off and running.
A Rangoli display and competition was held in an adjoining room. Generous prizes were given to the winners later. In other rooms simultaneously, families were having their portraits taken for their memories of this event, and members were registering for the Bone Marrow donation registry.
Five judges were selected and were introduced to the audience, Milan Dalsania, Mona Kadivar, Usha Kaneriya, Sudha Makadia and Payal Lalani. They took their seats and the dances began. The dance competition was very lively, with three teams competing.
The Team from Drexel, called Drexel Dhamaka, voted as the best US College team led the dance. They were heralded by two duha battling giants Jayant Dadhania and Vijay Kalola. This took us back to the real Kathiawad. This dance was followed by the South Jersey Garba group. The DND Dandya Group performed next. Then team of Chandu Borania & family. We were treated to a village style setting with very little instrument except drums and janz, a hand held cymbal set. This competition was so lively that I was glad I was not in the judge's seat. Before each dance, a video showed highlights of the group's past ventures.
In between the dances, Haresh Kaneriya gave a comprehensive listing of where the association started from and to where it is now, about a thousand members strong. We are so proud of and engrained in our adopted land that a lady Patel can and may aspire to be in the White House one day.
To attend to committee matters, the current president Jayantibhai Dadhania addressed the assembly and introduced the new incoming committee. The president-elect Kiran Ghodasara was introduced with the distinct honor and dedication of having served under every presidents that have been there for the past 25 years of the association.
Jayant Dadhania proudly declared the biggest achievements of reaching the one million dollar mark in charitable contributions for the organization in short span of 5-6 years. In the hallway, there was prominent display of various charitable activities including, student scholarship project, school building project, clean and safe drinking water project and anemia project among other charitable projects. In keeping with the promise of transparent management, the committee displayed the exact dollar amount collected and donated.
The organizers had invited all past PCA and KPSNA presidents to the event. Kiran then proceeded to invite on the stage all past PCA presidents and presented them with an award. Kiran then handed the stage to Manu Dadhania, who invited the KPSNA presidents on stage and presented each of them with an award. Mrs. Sudha and Mr. Dilip Dalsania were chosen to receive Community Service Award which was started to honor one of the founders, Late Rajnikant Bhalodia. This year's recipients of Shri & Srimati Ambavibhai & Otamben Bhalodia Memorial Student Excellence Award were Rishi Kaneria, Satya Makadia and Neil Makadia.
There was a health segment introduced by Neha Dadhania and included various issues surrounding us today. Neha introduced Dr. Ketki Dadhania who gave a moving awareness of breast cancer, and reminded all that in their take home red bags were two pamphlets, one in English and one in Gujarati. Later she was seen moving in the groups collecting women's email addresses for the women's forum.
Bone marrow donation was addressed by Manubhai. A friend of Amit Gupta is in dire need of a donor. It is much harder to find exact donor matches for South Asians than others, as he described his friend's plight.
There was a game hosted by Prajesh Patel based on the Price is Right show. This was a lot of fun for the audience, and there were gifts such as a GPS, a handbag, etc. to be won.
Laxmikant Makadia discussed the need for a community center for our Samaj and announced the formation of a committee to undertake this challenging task.
A fashion show followed that was well rehearsed and talented. It included women, men and children.
Dinner was a lengthy affair and very enjoyable. Two buffet tables with approaches on two sides speeded the affair. Feeding close to eight hundred and fifty people is a complex task that the hard working volunteers made look serene. Paneer, bhindi, mix vegetables, naan, kadhi, and rice were all mouth watering. To top it all, a nice mitha pan in plastic sealed pouches rounded the culinary encounter.
During the intermission and break times, drawings were made for the lottery winners. The grand prize was two tickets to India. This was presented to the winners by the donors.
Several individuals and family donated large sums of money for sponsoring many parts of this event. Dinner, appetizers, prizes, and a multitude of other activities were funded in this manner.
The last major entertainment event of the day was the singing group of Sa Re Ga Ma fame. Prachi Shah's melodious singing just rocked. The beautiful voice of the singers, combined with immaculate instrumentation set the audience clapping and foot tapping to various evergreen tunes such as …na tum bilkul eise ho, jesa mene socha tha… and many others.
PCA committee … you have done it. Let us see if anyone can follow such an act.
- Submitted by Pravin Trivedi |
