The United India Association of New England Inc. (UIANE) organized their Virtual Diwali celebration program on Saturday, November 21, 2020. Almost 500 enthusiastic families attended the program on Zoom and Facebook Live links that were open to the public.

Aditi Soni, the president of UIANE welcomed and thanked all those participants and attendees of the virtual Diwali celebration program. Boston Mayor Marty J. Walsh and his staff with UIANE team made this year’s Diwali an extra memorable for Indo-American community in New England, by displaying lights on Boston City Hall, as well as by joining virtually in the cultural event to share their Diwali greetings with everyone. Honorable Consulate General of India Shri. Randhir Jaiswal also joined virtually and extended his greetings to New England community.

Before their main virtual Diwali program, UIANE held online Rangoli contest and announced Priyanka Manish Jaiswal and Sonali Rathod as the top 2 winners and appreciated all the entries and thanked them for their participation. 

The evening cultural program started with the pictorial ‘Rama Katha’ and the performance by young kids Aadi, Aria and Meer Bhardwaj. This was followed by a melodious concert by TaalMel-The Band well-known in the Lexington area. Next, Aangikam Dance Academy’s Jasmine Shah presented her students’ elegant ‘Dheem Mahi’ dance. A melodic Bollywood Medley was presented by Amal and Raagini Jawa to the attendee to enjoy music. ‘East Meets West’ dance was presented by the performing Arts of New England very professionally. Nrityam group performed an amazing ‘Aloe Aloe’ dance for the spectators to relish the flavor of Bengal. Geetika Bajpai presented a striking Indian Traditional dance. This was followed by Aangikam Dance Academy’s ‘Tribute to Saroj Khan’ dance choreographed by Jasmine Shah. In between the program, UIANE event lead presented prerecorded ‘Diwali Greetings’ from the New England Community leaders.

Young kids sang another very inspirational Hindi song written by Gulzar, “Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena” that was directed by Poppy Charnalia. 2 year old Adelia and 5 year old Ada Gupta nicely presented their dance to a tuneful Bollywood song. The Fashion show was choreographed by Lovely Singh. Jusrin Padam performed brilliantly a Bollywood dance that made all the spectators swayed away by her moves. Two more lovely performances namely, ‘Indo-Western Kathak Fusion’, and ‘Tarana- The Beauty of Rhythm‘ by  Mona Dance Academy. Subsequently,  the performing Arts of New England offered an attractive ‘Prem Deewani’ dance piece. Roopa Modha, choreographer of Triveni School of Dance presented her students’ beautiful dance part. One more stunning Bollywood Dance Medley was presented by DFD Academy.

Aditi Soni thanked her team for their help and support to make this show possible Rashi Jaggi Gujral, Aanch Jain, and the Board of advisors - Sonia Sharma, Rakesh Soni, and Jatinder Sharma and the Board of directors - Lovely Singh, Rakesh Datta, Yash Sood, Jaya Goyal, Rekha Palriwala, Surender Kapoor and Deepak Garg. She also thanked the webmaster Akshay Chaand for putting this virtual show together and sailing through the last-minute technical challenge. She appreciated  many community leaders for joining the program virtually and wishing, ‘Diwali Greetings’ to all the attendees and also for collaborating with UIANE in their many 2020 initiatives, including: Sanjay Gowda and Vaishali Gade from IAGB, Manju Sheth from India New England Woman of the Year and Chai with Manju, Vijay Selhi from Shivalaya Temple Of Greater Boston, Manisha Jain from Sew We Care, Revathy Ramakrishna from Vision-Aid, Neelam Wali from Saheli, Support & Friendship for South Asian Families, Seema Melony from Indian Community of Needham, Preetesh Shrivastava from Hindi Manch, Shaleen Sheth from Women Who Win Dreamcatchers.

Aditi as well thanked all the sponsors who made this event possible, including Shehla Gull from New York Life, Vik Selhi and Sushil Tuli from Leader Bank, Peabody Essex Museum, McDonalds, Dina Debs from Eastern Bank, Manish Arora from Verizon/IM wireless, Rajive Dogra from Coldwell Banker, Devender Guhania from ExpRealty, Jeet Shahani from The Shahani group.