Diwali celebrations began in New England a bit early this year. Indian Americans of Lexington (IAL)hosted its Diwali celebrations on 11 Oct at Grace Chapel in Lexington.Little girls and boys (Anjali Shah, Armaan Shah, Divya Natarajan, Shiven Malik,Surya Rajamani, Tanisha Saxena) dressed up in traditional Indian dresses started the elegant evening by offering pushpanjili.

Mr. Puran Dang, Chair spoke to Lexingtonians about the accomplishments
of IAL over the last year, which included the increasing number of members, popularity of Gupshupclub, Spring picnic, library initiatives in the town , collaboration with Wilson farms, IAL moms performance at Museum of Fine Arts in association with Khelmel and Bhangra beats etc.

Then started the silsila of beautifully choreographed dances and music. Jayashri Rajamani as Emcee for the evening started the ball rolling with the first cultural item.Nature and Peace lovers choreographed by Kalpana Sachithanandham and performed by Kalpana Balachundhar, Manasvi Gunala, Oriel Hiser,Sai Darshini, Samira Chippada and Trisha Mohapatra held  the audience spell bound with their lovely dance.

Shubhra Chandra's carefully selected songs made everybody nostalgic about their own childhood with songs like Ghir ghir aaye re, Lakri ki Kaathi and Nani teri morni ko mor le gaye. Singers were part of LexLeher group (Alisha Pandit, Amit Koudinya, Anika Pandit, Arunima Saxena, Maya Delity, Priya Kondinya, Shaleen Sheth, Shiv Chandra,Shreeya Chandra, Shristi Khetan and Zahra Adamjee).

Harini, Kushi, Lavenya, Pavitra, Rachel, Rebecca, Shrutika and Trisha performed a dance onMukuntha-Mukuntha. LexMasala kids (Ambika Jaykumar, Bhavana Vadrevu, Lalita Devadas, Sadhana Vadrevu and Sheela Devadas) performed at Barso re and Jhoom Baraber Jhoom. Then followed the Dancing Heroes performance which included Achul Srivasan, Akshay, Nirmal Balachundhar, Yashasvi Raj.

After that, a sudden shift in mood came by the wonderful performance of "Tak DhinaDhin TO Hud Payr hua"from LexLeher kids (Arjun Delity, Arnav Prasad , Arunima Saxena, Ishaan Prasad, Maya Delity, Priya Kondinya, Riya Nagarajan,  Rohan Dang Sharma,Shaleen Sheth, Shreeya Chandra, Shristi Khetan and Zahra Adamjee). Their performance electrified the crowd and cat calls could be heard from a block. The dance was choreographed by Shonool Malik and Costume and Make-up was by Shubhra Chandra. Their look of Leher with blue dresses brought the perfect uniformity in the performance. Crowd went ecstatic with Mauja Hi Mauja song.

Mind blowing medley pleased the crowd with  choreographer Seema Arora and performers  Jason Deep Singh, Neil Arora, Seema Arora, Serena Arora and Sharon Deep Singh  performed on movie 'Cash' songs.

Dance N Masti brought people to there toes. It was wonderfully choreography by Sheetal Laad on songs Badi Mushkil (Lajja)to Bhumbro (Mission Kashmir), Soniye Ve (Kismet Konnection) performed by LHS Girls (Pooja Kumar, Sheetal Laad, Shruti Balasuryan, Sneha Durgapal,Varsha Kannan). It ended with energetic Bhangra by LHS boys (Herman Luther, Balaj Rai, Turab Rai, Roman Singh, Nikhil Srinivasan and Raeshib Aggerwhil).

Then came the last performance Parande da jhataka by Lexinton Moms, who performed energetic Gidda. All dress in yellow signifying the crops of wheat they danced with harmony and grace. Choreographed by Bhangra Beats's Reshma Singh and performed by  Madhu Nene, Sumana Rao, Meenu Khetan, Kamala Raj, Bhavana Laad,Raminder Luther, Anuradha Saxena and Nirmala Garimella it was worth the wait and a grand Finale.

After Mr. Sanjay Saxena gave a vote of thanks, the cultural program ended with Swami Saxena's ever popular Dhol where all dancers happily joined him and made a perfect ending to the beautiful evening.

After a delicious dinner served by Pongal, the floor opened for dancing enthusiasts, this opportunity was immediately seized by LHS alumni (Kartik Shastri and Satvik Ahluwalia) and they brought another round of dance lovers on the stage, which kept on going until lights were out. Sanjay Padaki kept the music running from beginning to the very end.

IAL received wonderful feedbacks from lexingtonians for management of the event. IAL steering committee members, Sudha Balasuryan,Geeta Kannan, Archana Singhal, Nirmala Garimella and Paul Tedrow did a wonderful execution of managing food, registration, set-up, while Anuradha Saxena needs to be thanked for the well-managed and wonderful cultural program. Madhu Nene along with Chandrika Govardhan and a whole team of Lexingtonians deserve praise for decoration and help. and thanks goes to all lexingtonians who came to the Diwali event and made this event a big success.

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