On November 4^th, the Odisha Society of New England (OSNE) celebrated 4^th annual Kumar Purnima festival at John F Kennedy Middle School at Plantsville, CT. Kumar Purnima is the full-moon day autumn festival is one of the most popular and important festival of Odisha. . According to the belief, 'Kumar' or 'Kartikeya', the handsome son of Lord Shiva was born on this day. As young girls always wish for a handsome husband, they propitiate Kumar who was the most handsome among the Gods. Girls also play traditional games like â€˜Puchi’ on this day and wears new clothes.

            The event started with traditional lamp lit ceremony by couple of the senior members of OSNE family followed by ‘Chanda Puja’ the rituals of offerings to Moon by young girls followed by competition of ‘Puchi Khela’, a traditional rural game in Odisha participated by young girls mostly aimed at enhancing the strength and stamina of girls. The main attractions of the evening were enthralling cultural performances from OSNE children and adults backed up by some high quality emceeing which kept the audiences engaged throughout the evening. The variety of performances include Jagannath Bhajan(recital parsing Lord Jagannath), traditional Sambalpuri dance(a folk dance form popular in Western Odisha), signing, instrumental, Bollywood dance, fashion show and group dance. The key highlights of the evening was ‘Unity In Diversity’ performed by young kids of ages between 4 to 14 which represents ‘unity without uniformity and diversity without fragmentation’. It was a celebration of ‘Diversity’- the one true commonality amongst us. 

Like any other OSNE programs food was on high priority in volunteers' mind and they delivered some mouthwatering food to everyone's liking.

It was refreshing to see about 15 new families who joined OSNE fold and they were welcomed on stage to introduce themselves and became part of OSNE family forever. The event was attended by around 150 people from Odia community living around New England area.

The evening culminated with the most anticipated performance by AnupamZ a renowned Zumba artist from Odisha living in CT which the audience thoroughly enjoyed.  

Unity in Diversity 2018

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