On Sept 10th, 2017, Indian community of Boston witnessed the biggest Navratri Raas-Garba celebration event held ever in the New England area. The event was hosted by The Academy of Creative Arts (ACA) in collaboration with Dhoom Entertainment, at the grand Ambrosia Banquet Facility, in Foxborough, MA. Over 2000 Garba lovers gathered to dance on the live drum beats and music resonating with the most sought-after voice of Legendary Shri.  Atul Purohit, accompanied with the finest musicians who flew all the way from Vadodara, Gujarat, India. In the land, far away from where the tradition of Raas-Garba originated, Bostonians were blessed to kick off the Navratri season with a bang! The event had all the glamours and glitters in addition to the devotional spirits carried by the community who enjoyed the festive celebration along with their friends and families. For some, it was a first-time experience to be part of this magnitude of celebrations, while for others, especially those who are brought up in Baroda, got to revisit their sweet memories filled with the nostalgic voice of Shri. Atul Purohit! The Hindus observe nine days of Navratri Festival to worship nine Goddesses who signifies the Supreme Divine Power of women as, “Ma Shakti”. Besides following traditional rituals, the devotees also celebrate Navratri with devotional dance called “Garba” and music in the praise of the Goddesses.

Shri. Atul Purohit is known for his extremely melodious and heart-touching representation of Raas-Garba singing that creates a highly captivating environment for thousands of Garba lovers. For decades, Shri. Atul Purohit and his group is associated with the United Way of Vadodara, a non-profit organization that organizes the world famous United Way Garba

United Way of Baroda (UWB) claims to have largest gathering of people at its venue during Navratri. Considering the huge crowd that it attracts every year, UWB organisers have applied for Guinness Book of World Records for having highest number of people at its venue in Navlakhi Ground. According to the organizers, over one lakh people on an average have visited their venue every night this year. UWB organisers feel that they have all the chances to bag the record as no other garba venue attracts this huge a number of people every night. The visitors taken into consideration by UWB include travelers and audiences. "The average number of visitors at our venue is around 1.25 lakh. We are keeping count of the numbers every day," said Manish Patel the chairman of resource mobilization wing of UWB told TOI.

With his huge fan following all over the globe, Shri Atul Purohit has played a key role in popularizing the traditional way of Navratri celebration. His signature renditions of, "Tara Vina shyam”, "Phagan foramto ayo", "Mor Bani Thanghat Kare" and many such compositions, can no doubt lead one into an ecstatic indulgence with dancing for hours and hours and can easily leave one spellbound! Shri. Atul Purohit has redefined the folk music to the great extent, and no wonder that today’s young generation as fallen in love the the old traditions again, as they look forward to the Navratri every year.

 The group of fine musicians who accompanied Shri Atul Purohit included the music director and composer, Shri Iqbal Meer on synthesizer/keyboard, while a team of fantastic drummers included Rupesh Vohra, Rajendra Solanki, Magan Raja, Arvind Joshi and Jayesh Chhatrapati. The vocal support was beautifully given by Dr. Kervi Buch and Shusma Joshi while the sound engineer Jigar Purohit did an amazing job to keep the show going.  All together, they created magic in the air that simply compelled the crowd to do Gabra non-stop, for hours and hours!

The Founders of ACA Mr. Hetal Joshi and Mrs. Java Joshi and Mrs. Eshani Shah of Dhoom entertainment had put in lots of prep work with the help of their partner Mr. Amit Pathak and other volunteers including Paresh Motiwala, Rekha Palriwala, Bhavana Motiwala, Chirag Parikh, Pratibha Krishnamurthy, Ashutosh-Tejal Patel, Tarun Swarnkar, Satish Palayum, Srikanth, Malini Varadarajan, Alok Bhaskar, Sneh Jaisingh, Jasmine Shahji, Rekha Jain, Sonal Yadav, Preetesh Shrivastava, Jigna Parikh, Manoj Shah and Bharat Shah. The event was generously sponsored by Sanjay Thakkar, Manish Arora, Prashanth Palakurthi, Harvard Pilgrim/Brenda Cole, Dharshana Shah, Anil/Heena Shah, Zizza Insurance, Jay Patel while Shobha Shastry wrapped the stage with super impressive & stunning decThe event was organized for the Academy of Creative Arts, Academy of Creative Arts is a school where 30+ different forms of creative and performing art programs such as Art, Music, Dance, Theatre & Acting, Photography, Henna, Public Speaking, Karate, Table Tennis etc. are all taught under one roof at state of the art 18000 sq. ft. facility in Burlington. Academy has become a hub for Indian programs and community to come together learn and enjoy. ACA now with its new 18000 sq.ft. facility and 70+ parking spots also rents its space for parties & special events.

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