Ashwin Patel
ST LOUIS: India Association of St. Louis celebrated Indian Republic Day at the Mahatma Gandhi Cultural Center of St. Louis on January 26 with two groups of children carrying the Indian and American national flags from the west end of the stage to the dais and hoisting the flags with American and Indian national anthems.
After the flag hoisting, the outgoing President of the association Krishna Rao Moharir welcomed the audience with a brief talk on the importance of the day. Then he called upon the Keynote speaker Swami Chetanananda, the Chief of Vedanta society of St. Louis and Kansas City, to share his wisdom.
Swamiji gave an hour long speech touching on various aspects of the life of Indians before and after independence. He stressed on the importance of spirituality which allowed Indians to endure great difficulties over centuries. He mentioned about the great emissaries of spirituality to the West particularly, Swami Vivekananda. He also reminded the importance of acknowledgement of the sacrifices of the spiritual leaders as well as the political ones.
Brining of the great culture to the common man was accomplished by the sages, while spreading to the West was achieved by the sacrifices of the great monks. Swamiji also called upon those present in the audience and those who could not attend the function to uphold those principles not by word of mouth but by being examples in practice.
Swamiji talked of the tolerance of the Indians which is due to the strong adherence to the principles of democracy at political level and to the Dharmic ideologies embedded in all the Indians, child and adult alike.
Following the speech, sweets and snacks were distributed by the members of the Board of directors consisting of Krishna Rao Moharir (Outgoing president), Sanjeeva Rao Chintakunta (incoming president), Venkat Pulumati (president elect), Vijaya Lakshmi Buddhiraju (Treasurer), Satish Nanjappa (Secretary), Haridas Kartha, Meera Jain, Radhika Rao and Suren Pathuri.
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