A group of talented New England desis got together enthusiastically at the monthly open mic night of SubDrift (Sub-continental Drift) on Friday evening, 20th Apr 2017, to showcase their talents at EMW book store of Cambridge, MA. SubDrift encourages creative expression and artistic participation amongst the local South Asian Americans.

SubDrift organizers, Mr. Michael Diwan Singh arranged stage very nicely and Mr. Aditya Nochur welcomed and thanked all the participants warmly and started the open mic program by reciting his own poem that expressed vividly the sad emotions of an immigrant. Mr. Deva who is Indian American and born and brought up here shared his struggle-some experiences while he was trying to mix with majority Indian crowd during his stay in India and related that one with his experience in the midst of the white community which is denying acknowledging the contribution of Blacks in area of urban farming. Mrs. Neena Wahi presented a poem on the importance of planting trees to save this earth from all kinds of pollutions. Simran, the youngest participant sang a song very melodiously.  Mr. Mustafa narrated beautiful Sufi devotional poems of Ameer Kushro in Arabic and Hindi and explained the meaning of them to the audience in clear terms.

Maitreya sang a mellow English song and entertained the audience as usual. Salvia presented a lovely poem on Safia Khan who has been involved in the global human rights movement and made everyone’s remembrance of her afresh. Lehar, the local the musical band presented melodious songs to the audience and made them to swing with tune. Later, the featured artist of the night, Anju who is a 20 year old South Asian American musician and a human bean presented her own melodious songs. She is a junior at Wellesley College studying Women's and Gender Studies and Psychology, concentrating in Education. She has written, recorded, and produced three albums of original music in her bedroom in Minneapolis. Her next album, Rind plus Seed, releases this June. She is allergic to soy milk and her dad is a magician.

Audiences were thrilled and felt happy by the harmonious open mic night of the SubDrift. “I was blown away, not only by the diversity of talents exhibited on a tiny stage. I was surprised to know that South Asians are really this creative. This program motivated me to perform something at a future SubDrift –said one of the participants.

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