BOSTON: On a beautiful warm day, India Association of Greater Boston (IAGB), a leading Indian-American organizations in the Greater Boston area-Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, celebrated the 70th Anniversary of India’s Independence on Sunday, August 14 at the Hatch Memorial Shell, Boston.
Hatch Shell is an outdoor concert venue on the Charles River Esplanade in the Back Bay section of Boston with a grass pavilion in front of the stage where thousands of colorfully dressed families with lots of children gathered to watch the program.
Jeyanthi Ghatraju, Director of IAGB welcomed all the dignitaries, guests, invitees and the audience to the function. Flag hoisting was performed while Sonica Vaid sang both the national anthems. Syed Ali Rizvi introduced Guest of Honor Ashraf Dahod, President and CEO at Altiostar, who gave an inspirational speech to the audience.
This year’s ‘Recognition of Service’ award was given to Dr Anil Saigal, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University and IAGB Volunteer Award was grabbed by Jatinder Sharma who joined IAGB in the early 1970s as a volunteer.Sanjay K. Gowda, Praveen Naduthota and Avinash Patil were honored with IAGB Youth Excellence Awards.
Many kids and adults, both boys and girls from various dance schools in the Greater Boston area presented dances mostly from Bollywood films with loud beats, then the classical and folk dances based on India’s Independence theme and patriotism to show and teach our younger generation about our rich heritage and sacrifices made by our forefathers. Late start, abrupt ending and the technical difficulties of the function created a little disappointment among the audience.
“Our children’s program was scheduled at 6:10pm but performed at 7:15pm due to late start and on the top of that there were technical difficulties. My friends’ children did not even get a chance to present their performance. Our children and we are disappointed and hope it will improve in future with better leaders in the organization,” said mother of a dance troop participant.
Geetha Patil
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