India Post News Service

ST. LOUIS: Gujarati Samaj of St. Louis, set up in 1984 with the efforts of some community leaders to preserve and promote traditional Indian values in this part of the world, celebrated Spring Festival last week at Mahatma Gandhi Center in St Louis with great enthusiasm.

Over 400 members of Gujarati community attended the event that included an interesting entertainment program by local artists, ethnic Indian -Gujarati food and fun activities. The Samaj officials and members headed by Madhukar Bhakta, Harish Patel and others made great efforts to help make the program a great success.

They induced a larger participation of children and young ones in celebrating the spring festival as also to provide platform to Gujaratis to come together to meet, greet, understand and celebrate their heritage. The Cultural Program 2008 presented Sitaron Ki Duniya solely with the help of admirable talents from the community members.

The program started with an introduction by Madhukar Bhakta and Harish Patel and this was followed with the singing of Indian and USA national anthems. The next to come was a prayer song and there after one by one twenty different items including Garba, Ghazal and small skits were presented. Dr Anilbhai Shah talked on health topics with a special emphasis on heart.

His speech on care about health in general was well received. Sudhakar touched upon the need for meditation and underlined the need to meditate. Sunil Patel and Nilima were the MCs for this event It was heartening to see the participation from sixty kids and young artists.

All those present really enjoyed Bhel from Seniors Group besides Dabeli, Vadapav, Kachori and Manchurians etc.