More than 800 adults and children celebrated Holi "The Festival of Colors" the way it is traditionally celebrated in India at an IDRF fundraiser in Shrewsbury, MA. This fun-filled event was organized at Milan Restaurant and Banquet Halls in Shrewsbury on Saturday, March 26th. The participants enjoyed the celebration, and left with a sense of fulfillment knowing that their contribution was going to the Tsunami victims in South Asia.

The event started with cultural performances. IDRF showcased some extraordinary young, local talent. The Satsang Center children rendered a dance performance on the patriotic song from Pardes "I Love My India". Maitre portrayed a dance by Lord Nataraj and the event ended with a dance devoted to Lord Ganesha by the disciples of Ranjani Saigal's, a local dance teacher.

After the cultural performances, Holi-Ka-Dahen or bonfires and poojas were performed. This event led to the main attraction, "Colors." This event then led to the main attraction, "Colors." The participants splashed colors at each other and danced to the tunes of “Rang Barse”, Daler Mehndi and surprisingly also to  the hip Hop music. With more than two hours of Music playing and dancing with colors, it was loads of fun. Even the laptop used by DJ Rohan was smeared with colors. People were dancing enthusiastically irrespective of their age.  More than 100 pounds of colors were splashed by the jubilant participants. Many children expressed to the organizers that they had been looking forward to this event since a long time.

People wanted to play more, but then there was Antakshari, another exciting event hosted by Swati Gupta and Devesh Verma. Forty two teams participated in the preliminary round of Antakshari, of which five were selected to compete in the final round. The final competition consisted of 5 rounds having multifarious questions on music and films. This fun filled and exciting event concluded with “The Patil’s” emerging as the winners and “The Mathur’s” as runners up. A Raffle was organized and the winner was gifted an iPod. On this occasion, IDRF screened its recently released VCD  “Sparsh, The healing touch” showcasing the outstanding long-term rehabilitation work done by IDRF financed 18 NGOs in Gujarat.

IDRF raised more than $4,000 in net proceeds through food sales and entry fees. These proceeds will be sent to the Rehabilitation of Tsunami victims in India, Sri Lanka and other countries. IDRF will be supporting projects undertaken by more than 20 NGOs working with a total grant of over $1 million dollars. IDRF has already disbursed $150,000 for immediate relief in Tamil Nadu, purchasing of fishing nets and Mobile Medical Van in Andhra Pradesh, construction of 150 temporary houses in Andaman & Nicobar islands, and supplying of drinking water in Kerala.

Buoyed by the success of its events in the past, IDRF Boston is organizing two events, "Life Goes On" dance concert by Jasmine Shah’s students on April 3rd  in Andover and Neena Gulati & Triveni Ensemble on April 24th in Brookline. Tickets for these events can be purchased online at http://www.idrf.org.  IDRF will be organizing its most popular event Six-A-side Cricket tournament in July this year.

To learn more about IDRF and its work, check out http://www.idrf.org/boston or email idrfboston@yahoo.com.

Sample Ankashari Quiz
Translate these English lines to Hindi  and identify the songs.

1. Sometime sometimes my heart has a thought
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2. Why do people fall in love? Why..?Why..?Why, why, why
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3. This star that star all star…
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4. Stop O crazy heart, let me ask
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5. The letters that I wrote, in your memory became thousand colors
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6. Today again I have the wish to live, today again I have the wish of dying
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7. Wet lips of yours, thirsty heart of mine
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8. Laughing laughing, the roads will be crossed, life should go on this way
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9. I am going, what’s the rush? Heart is beating, why is that?
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10.  Love has 100 problems, don’t fall in love.
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