Thanks to the support from the community and the phenomenal event planning by the Lokvani@10 team, the Lokvani@10 Gala event received rave reviews from attendees. The event was held on Sep. 9 at the Westin in Waltham, MA.  The gala was a celebration to mark the uninterrupted 10-year circulation of the bi-weekly e-magazine Lokvani.com. A fabulous team of nine including co-chairs Dr. Manju Sheth, Anu Chitrapu, Eshani Shah, Sangita Joshi, Sumi Manwani,  Drs. Mohan and Meera Subramanium, Sudha Lakshmi Rao and Ruchika Arora worked on the event planning and management and created an event that was classy and really fun.

After a lovely social hour when attendees could enjoy a lovely “Loktini” specially created for the occasion, the doors to the ballroom were opened.  The audience walked into an almost magical setting created by the décor from Alankar Decors and brilliant lighting by DJ Yogi.  Models featuring clothes by Choonri Collections welcomed the Lokvani@10 team with lamps.

Co-chairs Anu Chitrapu and Manju Sheth served as event hosts.  They began by welcoming the Lokvani team as they danced their way into the hall to a variety of rocking tunes.  Anil Saigal shared the Lokvani story with the audience. “We started with 3 articles and 30 subscribers. We have now written over 7500 articles and grown our subscriber base to over 45,000” said Saigal. “We are overwhelmed with the support we have received for today’s event. We thank you all and hope to continue on this journey together with you for many years to come.” During the event Saigal also thanked all the longstanding sponsors and presented token of recognition to Sushil Tuli of Leaderbank, Trupti Patel of Trupti N. Patel and Associates and Saluni Fadia of the Prashant H. Fadia foundation.  Gala sponsors were also thanked and a special shout out was given to Mr. Subu Kota, who was the grand sponsor for the Gala.

Following the story,  the entertainment program started with a lovely Guru Vandana by Odissi dancers Mouli Pal and Shamoyita Mukherjeee who picked  a composition of  Rabindranath Tagore  to mark the 150th anniversary of this great Indian. Later Sudha Lakshmi Rao presented a wonderful multilingual musical rendering of  A.R Rehaman’s Chinna Chinaa Asai.

The Lokvani team had endured the devastating loss of Chitra who died while covering a story about the Tsunami in the Andaman Nicobar islands. “We are honored today to have in the audience Chitra’s husband Vinod Muralidhar and his mother,” said Saigal. Nirmala Garimella paid a touching tribute to the memory of Chitra saying "we owe a lot of Lokvani's success and enduring presence in the community thanks to our dear friend and  founding partner". Dr. Meena Sundaram's   rendition of the song “Khilte hain ghul yahan” was very touching.

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