CHICAGO: For Hindi lovers in Chicagoland, September 9 would be lettered as the day for Hindi with close to 400 elite members of the community flocking to Yellow Box auditorium in Naperville to show their love and respect for the Indian national language, Hindi, that has been assiduously promoted by Hindi Premi Sangh for the past many years.
The fact that the Sangh has been doing yeoman services in this part of the world is because there are ardent lovers of Indian culture and Indian heritage here and this group led by Gurbachan Kaur Shewakramani among others has been organizing a number of activities including conducting Hindi classes and the Hindi Diwas celebration with a view to encouraging second generation Indian Americans to come forward and get actively involved in this effort.
Hindi Lovers Club of Illinois – Hindi Premi Sangh in collaboration with Consulate General of India-Chicago – celebrated 7th Annual Hindi Diwas and Midwest Hindi Talent Quest last week .Hundreds enjoyed this program without break until midnight. In a short talk , founder president Gurbachanji said the club is a not for profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt social club and its main purpose is to keep the Indian culture and its language alive in Indian communities overseas.
The club celebrates Hindi Divas as its annual event where it encourages kids and adults alike to participate in ethnic dances, songs, essay competition, to name a few activities in Hindi. From 2017 the annual event would be celebrated as the Midwest Hindi Talent Search.
The club has been conducting free weekly Hindi classes for kids and adults, organizes Hindi poetry group and invites Hindi speakers and entertainers to encourage Indians to attend and enjoy the language.
She pointed out that Hindi is the third most spoken language of the world right now and if the coming generation won’t use it, soon it might lose its position.
India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world in technology and United States is very keen to work with it. Hindi being the national language, its knowledge will be very helpful for investors in India and Hindi Lovers Club is trying to be a catalyst.
It was for the first time in Midwest that a talent contest was organized which had 125 participants, 11 categories and hefty cash prizes and trophies to encourage kids and adults to take part in Hindi competitions.
There were VIP guests which included high ranking official from India Khemchandji (Advisory board member of Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) Ministry I&B Gov of India, Convener – BJP Communication Cell Delhi), Consul O.P. Meenaji, Nimish Jani, Sunil Shah, Santosh Kumar ,Suryakant Khapekar, Sishir Ranjan , Ram Saini and Brahmakumari Jyotsana of Naperville center.
The program started with Ganesh Vandana by Natasha Trikha, a well known singer of Chicagoland. There was background dance by Kalanidhi dance group of India which came specially to perform at the Hindi Divas event . This is their first tour of US.
The lamp lighting ceremony was performed by VIP guests and the club officials. Acharya Rohit Joshi chanted Vedic Mantras sanctifying the lamp lighting ceremony. Past president Vinita Gulbani invited the founder and president Gurbachan Kaur to say few words. She was happy to note that a good number of community members could come to Hindi Divas event instead of going to other eight events going on at the same time.
This showed their love for Hindi. She encouraged everyone to use Hindi in day to day talk at home and with their fellow Indians to make Hindi as one of the most popular spoken languages in the world.
The Talent Contest started after that. The first one was kids Kavyapathan, and kids recited poems in
Hindi written by other poets and it was overwhelming. The kids were phenomenal. The 400 plus audience were spellbound till the end with the interesting contests and the performances by the Kalanidhi group. Specially their Panchtatva dance about Akash (sky), Jal (water), Agni (fire) Vayu (air) and Prithvi (earth) was just outstanding!
There were a few speeches by dignitaries about the importance of Hindi language and they all praised how Hindi Lovers Club is promoting Hindi overseas. Consul OP Meena endeared himself speaking in chaste Hindi and assuring all possible help and support from the Consulate. Khemchandji insisted everyone to learn Hindi as it is very essential now to get jobs in communication, broadcasting and journalism worldwide.
The competitions went on till 10.30 pm with Hindi quiz in different areas as fillers to involve the audience. Every quiz winner got a prize from HLC. The Award ceremony took place at the end with trophies and cash prizes for first three winners in each category. Certificates were awarded to every participant in the contest
Hindi Lovers Club announced that in future it will celebrate Hindi Divas event as Pravasi Hindi Divas in January because a lot of events fall in the month of September and lot of kids and adults cannot participate in view of other engagements. The first Pravasi Hindi Divas will be held in January 2018. The date and venue will be announced soon.
A vote of thanks was proposed by club secretary Anica Dubey. She thanked all the participants, their parents, supporters, vendors, volunteers and specially to the auditorium tech director Steve Cuney for his excellent work in managing the event.
If anybody wants to be a part of Hindi Lovers Club of Illinois to promote Hindi overseas he is advised to visit www.hindiloversclub.com, email: info@hindiloversclub.com or call 847 962 8595.
Dave Vasudevan & Jayanti Ojha
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