MILPITAS, CA: Silicon Valley sees many great performances, often by celebrities from Bollywood and the rock/pop world. However, what was presented at the India Community Center (ICC) in Milpitas, California on Friday, April 21, was out of this world.
It was a music and dance performance by pupils from some of India’s remotest villages. The event was “Ek Sur Ek Taal – A Musical Evening from the Villages of India” – a fundraiser for the non-profit organization, Ekal Vidyalaya.
The artists were a few young men and women hailing from villages in the states of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim in India.
Ekal, with headquarters in Houston, Texas, is an organization that has been involved with education and empowerment of tribals in India for several years. Often ignored by the mainstream and in the grip of poverty and underdevelopment, these tribal villages have benefited tremendously from Ekal’s initiatives.
The evening started off pleasantly with a warm reception of chai, samosas and a wonderful dinner banquet by Mayuri restaurant. Consul General, Venkatesan Ashok graced the occasion.
The entertainment segment began with a string of soul-stirring patriotic melodies from the talented singers and dancers of Ekal. Audience members were taken down memory lane with songs starting from old Hindi classics.
During all these performances in which the artists not only danced but also sang and played instruments, the stage backdrop was beautifully coordinated with matching visuals.
The emcee, Archana, did a fantastic job of keeping the audience engaged and informed, in fluent Hindi replete with poetry and English, punctuated with calls for charitable contributions.
Bipin Shah of the organization said the organization is now not just about education but about the uplift of villages, in other words, “Gramothan”.
There are programs such as a Block Tailoring Program teaching people to sew and make clothing, a Block Digital Literacy Program and Ekal on Wheels – a mobile computer lab that travels from village to village to impart technology instruction.
A high school student from Cupertino High School, Raji Shah shared her experiences as an intern with Ekal for a few weeks. Growing up in Silicon Valley that is the center of innovation, it was quite an adjustment for her to live among spiders and lizards in a remote village with no WiFi or cellphone access. However, she came away deeply enriched by her experience and touched by the warmth, generosity and love of the tribal children that she spent time with.
Ritesh Tandon and Nilu Gupta of UPMA (Uttar Pradesh Mandal of America) along with another lady, Ms. Lata, spoke about their organizations’ work in educating poor children in the Bundelkhand region of India. Nilu Gupta is also a professor at DeAnza College where Hindi is currently being offered as a second language with college credits.
The next item on the evening’s entertainment list was a series of folk dances from various parts of India, accompanied by beautiful backdrops depicting these regions and their people dancing. The featured dances were: ‘Gaddi’ from Himachal Pradesh, a folk dance from Jharkhand, ‘Bihu’ from Assam, Nepali folk dance from Sikkim, ‘Ghoomar’ from Rajasthan, ‘Kombadi Palali’ song and dance from Maharashtra, ‘Garba’ from Gujarat, ‘Apadi Podu’ song and dance from Tamil Nadu and lastly, ‘Gidda-Bhangra’ from Punjab.
As part of the fundraising efforts, the organizers also sold raffle tickets. The Honorable Teresa Cox who was also one of the esteemed dignitaries in attendance, announced some of the winners.
The grand finale of the evening was a musical enactment of the timeless Indian epic, the Ramayana.
What was absolutely astounding was that a handful of performers – around nine of them – played a multitude of roles from the heroine, Seeta to a Lankan warrior woman, from the hunchback maid Manthara to the hunchback old devotee Sabari.
