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 The plush and spacious auditorium of Singapore Polytechnic wore a distinct festive look and reverberated with an impressive blend of a play with a strong spiritual message, qawwali type bhajan, foot tapping bollywood dance numbers and some lovely jigs by the kids on the past sunday evening when BIJHAR members and their children made a sincere attempt to showcase their talents despite the constraints, ongoing school examinations, global recession and a packed work schedule.
BIJHAR's signature Deepavali event which was dubbed "Deep Utsav 2009" this year, could kick off only at 7.30 pm despite the best efforts to stick to the original schedule of 7 pm due to a low turn-out at the start. Thanks are due to those who were present on the dot and the organizers do hope that a larger number will make it in time for the future events. Though the
late start resulted in cancellation of only one item i.e. the "jam session" , a favorite amongst the participants. As one of the founders of BIJHAR, it gave me immense satisfaction to see so many happy faces in the function. As humans, we are all constantly seeking happiness. The kind of happiness that enthralls us and touches our souls is the most cherishable and to see that kind of bliss permeate the gathering was very heartwarming and I felt that the BIJHAR organizers did a fairly commendable job in executing the whole show quite admirably. Our guest-of-honour Dr. Nilanjan Sen, a senior professor and US citizen and a dean at the local Nanyang Technological University declared the programme open by lighting the lamp. In his speech, he beautifully described the unique status of Singapore which, according to him, is hugely cosmopolitan in character but not necessarily a melting pot. He quipped that professors are apt to render long speeches but he would make this a short one. True to
his words, he left the podium after a short speech but not before he had spoken some humrous points about his globe-trotting job and his maternal roots in Bhagalpur. Personally, I have always promoted the idea of showcasing BIJHAR programmes which are an out and out creation of the members themselves and to see that happening on such a scale was definitely a great feeling. Visit the link below for the photographs of the event. http://picasaweb. google.com/ bijhar.singapore /DeepUtsav09 A series of dances by children followed the lighting of lamp by Dr. Sen, accompanied by BIJHAR vice-president Abdhesh Prasad. Thereafter a play was staged which was the first of its kind in the history of BIJHAR. A silde presentation about BIJHAR's activities, a qawwali and a dance by BIJHAR seniors also formed the part of the repertoire. Here is a summary: O my friend Ganesha:
Dharti upar dariya, dariya ke upar ambar, ambar ke upar chanda, chanda ke upar taare, taaron mein ek tara dhruv, devon mein to dev hamara sabke upar, o my friend Ganesha, tu rahna saath hamesha...................
I am sure the children won everyone's heart with their unique style of rendering invocation to Lord Ganesh to set the events rolling. It turned out to be a real sweet way to kickstart the stage events with a devotional song where the kids request their friend Ganesha to stay with them.
Lakh lakh pardesi:
The Desi Girl number was performed exquisitely by Niyati and Pragya.
Bum bum bholey:
This was performed beautifully by Lavanya, Aryaman, Akash, Mohit and Anvit.
Jai Ho:
The duo of Shubhangi and Shruti danced on the famous Oscar winning score "Jai Ho" and scored mighty points with the dispaly of a tiranga (tricolour of the Indian flag) which added to the show.
Dance pe chance maar le:
This superhit number from the movie "Rab ne bana di jodi" was also rendered very well by the children comprising of Niyati, Pragya, Aayushi and Navya. Baby show:
An excellent idea of presenting the tiny tots on the stage. The parents with the apple of their eyes created feelings which were truly magical. Adway with dad Manoj, Parini with mom Bhavana, Aryaman with mom Neelam,Tannu with dad Baldeo were the new additions to BIJHAR family who were from an age bracket of newly-born to 3 years.
The children dances were followed by a presentation on BIJHAR by its President Brajesh Karjee. Brajesh touched upon the key points about BIJHAR which included slides on BIJHAR's charity efforts in Singapore and India with SPD (Singapore), Children of Mother's Earth (COME) (Ravi Rai), UP/Bihar Asha Vihar, Jharkhand, Gramin Evam Nagar Vikas Parishad (Ram Kishor Prasad Singh), Bihar and Jharkhand Vikas Nyas (JVN) (Basant Hetamsaria), BIJHAR's growing list of life members which has now risen to 24. Brajesh also underscored the importance of preserving and nurturung our cultural and spiritual traditions through such community gatherings.
Shankaracharya and the Gyani - the musical play
The play depicted a serious event from the life of Jagadguru Shankaracharya, one of the most prominent Jagadgurus of India. The play attempted to drive the point that even though we may feel to have acquired spiritual knowledge and transcended the defects in our life, anger, greed, false pride etc., these afflictions remain embedded in us in a subtle form.
In the first part, the Jagadguru explains the concept of bliss - the eternal happiness. The transitory nature of the worldly happiness is elusive as this happiness is both temporary and diminishing. Moreover, the feeling of happiness is an internal process. A drunkard derives extreme happiness when offered a bottle of wine in his meal, however, a priest gets highly offended when someone offers the same wine in his meal. Which means that the wine by itself did not have happiness in it. It was the thinking of the indvidual which made the same wine appear differently to them. Similarly, the first bite of a rasagulla makes one feel delighted, the
second less, the third even less and the fifth causes neither happiness nor sorrow, the tenth gives sorrow and if insisted with the fifteenth, the man starts shouting. "Maybe the rich and the mighty derive greater happiness", questions a disciple. Shankaracharya replies that it is merely a myth. A beggar woman derives the same happiness by embracing her ugly and squint son, as a queen who embraces her handsome and charming son. "Where then do
we obtain eternal happiness". Shankracharya quotes Vedas (Raso vai sah), Taittreya Upanishad (Anando brahmeti vyajanat) and proves that only when we surrender ourslves to the Lord, we start to experience the bliss. Surrender here means bhakti i.e. love for God. At present, our heart if full of worldly desires and we have no love for God. The constant
chase of the worldly desires had led to our heart being filled with lust, hunger, pride, greed, attachment and jealousy etc. Only when we throw them out of our heart, God can manifest there and since God and Bliss are synonymous, we will start experiencing happiness. Otherwise, we are deprived of this bliss, though situated within God, much in the same way
that a fish in the ocean is feeling thirsty due to its lack of knowledge of the water.
In the 2nd part of the play, A gyani (seeker of spiritual knowldege) comes to the Jagadguru to become his disciple. However, the Jagadguru sends him back to practise devotion to God explaining to him that he is not yet qualified. Upon his return, Shankaracharya instructs his maid to sweep some dust in his direction when he is about to enter the ashram. The Gyani gets mighty furious and hence Shankaracharya sends him back again to cleanse his inner self further. Upon his next visit after a year, as instructed by Shankaracharya the maid touches his garment with the mud soaked broom. This time the Gyani controls his words but gets angry nevertheless, his facial expression suggesting a full outburst of anger within. Finally, the Gyani is subjected to a bucketwash with dirt when he returns for the third time. However, this time the Gyani remains unaffected, rather he tells the maid, look, you are my first guru, you only have taught me how to overcome anger and you are responsible to make me reach the lotus feet of my Guru. He then bows down to touch her feet. The play ends with rendition of a divine hymn.
The play was made possible within a very short time-frame with an enthusiastic participation from Vikas Singh, Vageesh Ranjan, Deepika, Shailendra Kumar, Bikal Pokharel, Abhishek Arun and Tarana Verma.
Darbar hazaron dekhe hain, tere jaisa koi darbar nahin:
The participants of the play also rendered a quawwali cum Bhajan which had lovely stanzas strong enough to penetrate the hardest of materialists. Here are some of the lines:
Is duniya se ham kya maange duniya to khud hi bhikari hai, maango us sadguru pyaare se, jahan hota kabhi inkar nahin ..............
Woh aankh bhi aankh nahin hoti jis aankh mein sharamo haya hi na ho, woh dil nahin patthar hote hain, jis dil mein prabhu ka pyaar nahin...............
Hasrat hai meri in aankho ki, jab mera dum yeh nikalta hai, teri saanwarisurat saamne ho, aur kuchch bhi hamen darkar nahin...............
Fashion show:
BIJHAR kids walked down the ramp giving a glimpse of the trends of various fashion clothings. The particpants were Shubhangi, Shruti, Navya, Akash, Aryaman, Lavanya, Ayushi, Niyati and Pragya.
The bollywood potpourri:
This was an Indian version of the united nations by the senior member couples of BIJHAR: Brajesh and Priya enacted "boomro boomro" in Kashmiri outfits. Baldeo and Priyanka's jig in a Marathi fishermen costume on "dariya kinare ek bungalow" was mesmerising. Next was the inimitable Prakash Hetamsaria and Bhawana rendering a typical Bihari style latest number "saas gari devi nanad chutki leve, sasural genda phool". Our ace choreographer and the top
contributor of the show Ekta with her hubby Manoj did the next number "Jhoomaka gira re" which made the crowd ecstatic. Finally it was the compere of the evening Prakash Kejriwal and his wife Veena who did a Panjabi bhangra on "bolo ta ra ra". The icing on the cake was the display of a large Indian tricolor flag which was brought on the stage to glorify the unity in India amidst its cultural diversity . In the end all the dancers representing different states joined together to dance on the beats of song Des Rangila. A set of new dancers Neelam, Abhishek etc. also joined the excitement.
Finally, it was curtains for the BIJHAR stage events and everyone headed for the sumptuos buffet dinner which had been catered from Moghul Mahal. Parallely, the adjoining space was also let open for the bursting of crackers and fireworks.
Thus ended one of the most fascinating and eminently memorable events of BIJHAR. Those who prefered to remain out of the spotlight but contributed to the success of the event no less significantly were BIJHAR's secretary Jayant Singh, BIJHAR's treasurer Krishnakant Singh, Saurabh Mani, Chanchal Kumar, Sunny Anupam, and Abhishek Kumar and many more. |
