Boston Sargam’s annual event for 2013 was held on Oct. 12th at the Keefe Tech Auditorium in Framingham, MA. It was a spectacular show of talent, passion and creativity. The evening began with a wonderful dance performance by the Lockwood Kids, choreographed by Shrvani Balaji, who previously won the first prize in our 2011 solo dance competition. She is successfully running her own dance school in the Nashua area. This was followed by an equally enchanting group dance by junior students of the Bollywood Dance Academy, choreographed by Nikita Rao and was a tribute to the living legend Madhuri Dixit-Nene.

After a brief video introduction of the judges, the first act of the evening in the competitive category featured a beautiful rendition of a Bollywood solo song sung by Sachi Badola. She competed with two other participants in the junior age category (ages 10-15). In the senior categories, Saurabh Dubey and Div Prakash also gave wonderful performances (age groups 16-31 and 32 & up respectively). Shri. Shekhar Shastri gave a special performance – he melodiously sang a song based on Indian classical music, from the film Dil Hi To Hai (1963). One of the greatest surprises of the evening was a wonderful Bollywood rendition by Mr. David Gassenheimer; he sang a Hindi song from the classic film Khamoshi (1969).       

The Arya Dance Academy of New Jersey gave a mesmerizing dance performance and received a standing ovation from the entire audience. They competed with two other groups in the group dance category. Neil Arora (age group 10-15) and Krithi Nathan (age group 16 & up) danced gracefully when they competed with their peers in the solo dance category. As part of a special performance, the Bollywood Dance Academy paid a tribute to the veteran Bollywood dancer Helen.    

The distinguished guests Dr. Manju Sheth, Smt. Poonam Ahluwalia and Smt. Ranjani Saigal were honored during the event and they motivated the participants and members of the audience with their encouraging words. Dr. Seema Arora (President, United India Association of NE) extended her warm welcome to Dr. Manju Sheth, Shri. Tej Singh (Boston Sargam Co-Founder) greeted Smt. Poonam Ahluwalia and Boston Sargam President and Founder Dr. Anil Chawla greeted Smt. Ranjani Saigal.             

This year, Boston Sargam introduced three new non-competitive categories for the purpose of entertainment and talent promotion: Shayari, Comedy and MC’s got talent. Shri. Shekhar Shastri, Ms. Sunayana Kachru and Ms. Sharda Jha recited enchanting Hindi Shayari. Dr. Nikhil Gokhale performed stand-up comedy and filled the auditorium with spontaneous laughter. Emerging MC Shirin (Pari) Bakre also got an opportunity to showcase her talent in front of the audience.
             
As part of the event, Mr. Bibek Das (core member of Boston Sargam) was instrumental in organizing the Mela activities featuring Indian jewelry, traditional garments and artifacts at the Keefe Tech. premises. During the intermission, the audience and all other participants enjoyed delicious Indian food and desserts.     

To ensure a smooth seating process at the auditorium, Mr. Rajesh Bhutani (core member of Boston Sargam) did a wonderful job by creating an elaborate ticketing chart and selling tickets before his travel abroad. Dr. Rajbir Kalsi also did excellent work in taking care of online tickets and phone orders for event tickets. She, along with Mrs. Sudha Bhutani and Dr. Ashwini Mishra took care of all the ticket sales and handling at the registration desk on the day of the event.
 
The Primetime Celebrity segment on October 12th showcased vibrant singers Mohan Subramaniam and Sharanya Sarkar Verma, along with past Boston Sargam winners, the very promising and talented Valentino Almeida and Debaleena Bandopadhyay.  Sharanya sang a beautiful song “Mohe Panghat Pe” and Mona Mitra had great choreography on this song.   Debaleena also sang a duet along with Valentino.   You don't want to miss hearing Mohan and Valentino sing at Chaand Aahen Bharega on Novemebr 16th at Keefe Tech.


Talented MCs Monica Gill, Pavit Arora and Nikita Rao hosted the event. The Boston Sargam event on the 12th of October also featured two large screens for video projection (live and pre-recorded). Anil Chawla, Tej Singh, Nikhil Gokhale and Navneet Sharma were in-charge of the audio-visual set-up. Stage managers Jaya Asthana and Bela Kaul made the event successful through their skillful management and vast experience. Bryan and Grace helped the Boston Sargam team with their expertise in Light & Sound technology.
      
The spectacular event concluded with the award ceremony and winners in each category were presented with Boston Sargam trophies.  
 
Boston Sargam would like to sincerely thank our final event judges for their exemplary work. Jasmine Shah, Anindita Nanda and Shaily Jaiswal adjudged all the dance categories. Sameer Bhambhani, Arun Verma and Neelima Chaturvedi adjudged all the song categories. Our special thanks to Rajan, Dr. Madhumita Das and Anudha Gupta for judging the song auditions and Anu Surendran, Deepa Jacob and Nikita Punjabi Rao for judging the dance auditions.

We would also like to thank our media partners, viz., INDIA New England (Mr. Upendra Misra), Lokvani (Mr. Anoop and Mr. Anil Saigal), Gunjan Radio (Mr. Bipin Parekh) and Sounds of India Radio (Mr. Harish Dang). We are thankful to our core team members who worked selflessly and passionately in promoting local talent. Our support team consisted of - Music Auditions: Tej Singh, Rajesh Bhutani & Anil Chawla, Dance Auditions: Nikita Rao, Shayari: Praveen Misra, Comedy: Bibek Das, Registration: Ashwini Mishra, MC's got Talent: Monica Gill. Boston Sargam is also thankful to Dr. Seema Arora (President of United India Association of New England) for providing help and cultural directions to Boston Sargam. Our sincere thanks to Lata Kumar, Seema Kapoor, Jharna Madan (TV Asia), Menka Jethra, Lata Mundkur (Avatar Group), Gauri Chandna, Chitro Neogy (EventEdge), Ravi Shahani, Vaishali Sabnis, Madhavi Phadke, Sourav Srimal, Mirza Tanveer and Boston Desi Connection for the publicity of this event. Boston Sargam would like to thank all volunteers, viz., Amit Singh, Anit Gupta, Ashwini Mishra, Avinash Agarwal, Bela Kaul, Bibek Das,  Bikash Verma, Geeta Singh, Gurbir Kalsi, Himani Chawla, Jaya Asthana, Kabir Kalsi, Kavita Katti, Kunal Chawla, Madhumita Das, Manish Chawla, Mihir Munshi, Navneet Sharma, Nikita Rao, Nikhil Gokhale, Priti Sonwalkar, Pratibha Mishra, Praveen Misra Rajesh Bhutani, Rajay Goel, Rakesh Singh, Rajbir Kalsi, Rekha Singh, Rishi Kapoor, Sanjay Kaul, Shashank Mishra, Shristi Bhutani, Sudha Bhutani, Sujata Verma and for their relentless support and enthusiasm. Special thanks to Deepa Jacob for doing wonderful photography; she took more than 300 high quality photographs for Boston Sargam. Boston Sargam also thanks Jharna, Gauri and Ruma for taking great pictures and Dr. Rajbir Kalsi for articles related to pre-event coverage.   

The Boston Sargam 2013 winners in each category were as follows:

Solo Song (Age 10-15):
Sachi Badola – 1st prize
Aratrika Dey – 2nd prize
Anisha Purohit – 3rd prize
 
Solo Song (Age 16-31):
Saurabh Dubey – 1st prize
Indira Chakraborty – 2nd prize
Agraja Thuse – 3rd prize
 
Solo Song (Age 32 & Up):
Div Prakash – 1st prize
Ashutosh Patel – 2nd prize
Sunil Nambiar – 3rd prize
 
Solo Dance (Age 10-15):
Neil Arora – 1st prize
Kuhu Wadhwa – 2nd prize
Vrinda Iyer – 3rd prize
 
Solo Dance (Age 16 & up):
Krithi Nathan – 1st prize
Shrvani Balaji – 2nd prize
Amrita Vadhera – 3rd prize
 
Group Dance:
Arya Dance Academy (NJ) – 1st prize
Satrang Dance Group – 2nd prize
Bollywood Fusion Dance School – 3rd prize

In collaboration with Milan USA’s Suresh Sharma, Boston Sargam also plans to organize a grand Holi celebration in 2014. This would probably be the biggest festival of colors in the New England/Connecticut area. Readers are requested to visit the respective websites for further updates.

Thanks to Deepa Jacob for providing great photographs.