On 22 January, which was a historic day for the whole country, “RamLalla Came to Eden Park” when we ladies in AEP got together and celebrated with great devotion by reading Sunderkaand paath and singing bhajans in our club house. Kusum Khandelwal and a few others had arranged it. At the end we performed aarti, shared the Prasad and went home with the blissful feeling that Lord Ram had really come to our society and blessed us. In the evening diyas, so arranged as to read “Jai Shree Ram”, were lit near the entrance gate.
It was Republic Day soon after. Again, on 26 January, we had a wonderful celebration together. As usual our president, Naradji, unfurled the flag and we all sang the national anthem and then children began their programme. It was great to see the most important objective being fulfilled namely – instilling patriotism in our future generations. Superb performances by the children – Alisha Singh, Livya Agarwal, Aanshi Agarwal, Anika Singh, Rishika Gupta, Ishani Gupta performed dance and sang; Shaurya Kansall and Siddharth Goyal sang and played keyboards.
In the adult group our esteemed poetess, Anjana Jain, rendered some beautiful lines. Pushpa Gupta, one of the most senior ladies of our society and a retired Sanskrit professor, came up with a novel quiz in which she translated some famous Hindi patriotic songs into Sanskrit words and we had to guess which song she referred to. Children and adults alike were smart enough to guess the songs and get a chocolate each as prize.
Our compere, Sunil Jain, did a great job introducing the performers in between asking quiz questions on the history of India and also cracking funny jokes. We were treated to samosa, rasagullah and hot chai. There was a special stall set up by some of our very young entrepreneurial girls – Aditi, Anya, Kashavi and Siya, who called themselves ‘Barita Babes’. They sold coffee and home-baked cookies and cakes. Watch out for them in the future. They are going to make it big!!
