Magnificent Finale of India Fest 2012 held at ISC Abu Dhabi

by Alphonse Mendonsa/Thomas Sequeira
Team Mangalorean

Abu Dhabi, 06 Feb 2012: INDIA FESTIVAL 2012, which was held at India Social and Cultural center,  from 2nd to 4th Feb 2012 saw the over whelming response from Indian Community everyday enjoying the spectacular events presented by renowned International and local artists finally came to an end on Saturday at midnight.

 

The Indian community from all over U.A.E enjoyed three days extravaganza of entertainment, fun and variety of delicacies served by Indian and Arabic restaurants, number of shopping outlets, art, painting & culture, books exhibition and numerous promotions by banking sector and property exhibitors all under one roof and that too at throw away prices.  The little kids too enjoyed a loads of goodies and fun for the three days.   The festival saw the record attendance estimated at 30,000 plus and hundreds of prizes were given away via various raffle draws held by  banking sectors, Jewelry shops , property exhibitions and finally by ISC itself including a mega draw of brand new fully automatic Nissan Car.  There were 25 artists arrived from India to perform at the festival and presented various forms of Indian Dances such as Gujarati Folk Dance, Bengali and Punjabi bhangra beats.  Also joined in the festivity were dancers from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and from Egypt, all of them presented beautiful memorable dances which captivated and mesmerized the audiance.  Local artists too joined in and the little kids were trained by Cultural Wing of Indian embassy under the guidance of Ms. Anuja Chakravarthy  sang and danced to the super hit Bollywood hits such as Sheela ki Jawani, Kolaveri, Munni badnam hu yi and many others.  Ms. Chakravarthy was also instrumental in bringing in 25 Indian renowned artists to perform at the festival by arranging speedy visas and travel arrangements.

 

Well everything has to come to an end and it was the final day on 4th February 2012, the Closing Ceremony of grand festival took place.  The Vice Chairman of India Social and Cultural Centre Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty (MD NMC Group) was the chief guest of the day arrived at 7pm at the premises along with his wife Ms (Dr.) C. Shetty.  Mr. Ramesh Panicker (ISC Hon. President) along with Mr. John Varghese (Hon. Vice President), Mr. Jayaram Rai (ISC Hon. Auditor) and Mr. Yogesh Prabhu (ISC Hon Treasurer) welcomed him to the festival and took him for a tour of all outlets.  Mr. Shetty showed his keen interest in many shopping outlets and congratulated all the owners and their representatives for their interest in ISC festival and wished them good luck.  He took special interest at the art and painting exhibition put up by his own group New Medical Centre which will donate the entire amount earned during the festivity to the charity causes.

 

The painting exhibition titled ‘Srishti-Drishti’ was created by Ms. Jyothy Prasanth Manghat and Santhi Promoth Manghat. Dr. B.R. Shetty congratulated Ms. Jyothy and Ms. Santhi Manghat for their hard work and marveled at their creations.  He also toured all the food outlets and tasted food almost at all the outlets and enjoyed the good food prepared by representatives and appreciated them.  Later in the evening H.E. Mr. Vijaysinghe (Ambassador of Sri Lanka to U.A.E.) and Mr. Richard D’souza, (Treasurer – Board of Governors – ADIS) too joined him for tasting various delicacies and they together toured all the food outlets.

 

 

Well then, it was time for a little entertainment prior to the closing ceremony. Again emcees for the entire three days festival Miss. Aparna Das and Mr. Danish welcomed Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty, H.E. Mr. Vijaysinghe – Sri Lankan ambassador, Mr. Ganesh Babu (Title Sponsor – Gemini Building Materials, Mr. Richard D’Souza (Board of Goversers – ADIS), Col. Tamimi (Community Police Abu Dhabi) Mr. Humayun Alam(Main Sponsor, Asst. Gen. Manager Al Masood Automobiles), Ms. Ajuja Chakravarthy (Cultural Secretary – Indian Embassy) and other dignitaries to the final session of the festival.  The colourful evening began with a foot tapping Punjabi Bangra dance by Punjabi Association of Abu Dhabi,  followed by Gujarati Folk dance by Troupe from India entertained the audience.  The little kids (Sarat, Ismail, Priya Ajhi, Unmesh and Lekha) danced beautifully to a few tunes of Bollywood, represented by Cultural Wing of India.  Sri Lankan community too joined in presenting a lovely traditional lamp dance represented by Sri Lankan Embassy.  Once again Egyptian dancer Mr. Mohammed put up a brilliant show called Egyptian revolving dance performance revolving estimated 500 times in 15-20 minutes and at the same time performing 100s of tricks while revolving which was widely applauded and appreciated by the dignitaries as well the five thousand plus crowd gathered on that day.  Well known Magicians of U.A.E. Jins Manimala and Abu Backer entertained the kids and young by special magic tricks.  Local singers namely Saji Dubai, Lekha Ajay, Ajay, Unni Basheer, Priya Aji and ISC renowned singer M.A. Ramachandran too provided entertainment by singing in Malayalam, Tamil, and Hindi.

 

Once the entertainment part was over Mr. Ashok Nair (Hon. Entertainment Secretary) who was instrumental in organizing the festival and the one who made it successful event invited all the distinguished guests on dais and requested Mr. Ramesh Panicker to honour them.  Mr. Panicker felicitated all the dignitaries on dais with floral bouquets.  He also delivered his presidential address and thanked especially Dr. B.R. Shetty for attending the grand closing ceremony despite his hectic schedule.  He said Mr. Shetty could not attend the Opening Ceremony due to his business meetings in Vietnam but had called him and congratulated on the first day and had promised that he would 100% make it to the concluding ceremony and as promised he attended today and appreciated his presence.  He also thanked all other dignitaries on the stage especially Mr. Vijaysinghe (Sri Lankan Ambassador), Col. Tamimi (Community Police) and all the sponsors mainly Mr. Ganesh Babu (Title Sponsor), Mr. Humayun (Main Sponsor) and supporting sponsors.  He thanked the organizing committee and members of ISC and others who were involved in putting this mammoth show for their efforts and hard work and making it successful.

 

H.E. Mr. Vijaysinghe also spoke on the occasion and thanked the President and the Indian community for inviting him not only for this festival but every major programs that are conducted at India Social and Cultural Centre.  He said there is no difference between India and Sri Lanka as he tasted the same type food at all the Indian outlets today.  He said currently bond between India and Sri Lanka is very strong not only trade relationships but many other humanitarian issues.  He also sure that there is no doubt very soon India is going to become Super Power in the region and Sri Lanka is pleased to be partner with India and will be able to work towards progress and development of both countries.

 

The title sponsors and main sponsors also addressed the audience and thanked ISC for inviting them for their sponsorship and very happy to be part of the grand celebration and promised to continue their support every year for the INDIA FESTIVALS by their sponsorships.

 

Vote of thanks was evoked by Mr. Jacob – convener of the festival and thanked each and every one for their support.  Various raffle draws were held including the mega raffle draw for the fully automatic Nissan Car and 100s of prizes were given away.

 

At the end of the show DJ Eappen provided Bollywood numbers and the crowd danced till midnight when finally the curtain came down and the ISC INDIA FESTIVAL 2012 CONCLUDED.

 

The sound system for the entire show was provided by BROADWAY Abu Dhabi a leader in the sound system provider in U.A.E.