“Great Music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leave the memory with difficulty”  Sir Thomas Beecham

Hindi Manch entered its 3rd year hosting the popular SaReGaMaPa musical competition and event  with very high expectations. After record attendance and rave reviews in the preceding 2 years, the Hindi Manch organizers wanted to extend their efforts to create a show that celebrated community, presented quality and provided an entertaining experience for all viewers.

Over 500 people filled the auditorium at Mass Bay Community College in Wellesley, MA on June 30th, 2012 to witness this long-awaited event. The venue was transformed into a welcoming oasis to celebrate music, musical appreciation and performance. From the tastefully decorated lobby depicting a garden to the glittering backdrop on stage, all attendees knew they were in for a treat!

Preetesh Shrivastava, President of Hindi Manch elaborated, “One of the key objectives of Hindi Manch is to bring people who know Hindi and /or want to know Hindi together. For this, Hindi Manch organizes various events and the prestigious singing competition ‘Hindi Manch SaReGaMaPa’ is one of them. We went  to various towns for auditions. While we agree that it is a competition, the aim is to bring music lovers/Hindi song lovers together which is why people’s participation is important.  We promised  all audition participants at least one chance to sing on stage during our houseful Finale event.  We want to emphasize that participation is more important than winning,  our aim is to have participants have fun, gain experience and make new friends and engage in the vibrant cultural community in the New England area”

The show began at 5 PM under the capable emceeing  by Chaitanya  and  Mugdha . The honorable chief Guest was Shri Upendra Mishra lit the ceremonial  lamp. The evening started with a group song presented by a number of enthusiastic participants under the guidance of Shri Pradeep Shukla and Meena Sundaram. The song  Ashayein sung with gusto and passion was appreciated by all and set the tone for the enchanting evening to follow.

This was followed by a scintillating group dance by the talented dancers from Angikam Dance Academy under  the guidance of Smt Jasmine Shah.

President Preetesh Shrivastava  spoke eloquently about the mission of Hindi Manch and its mission in promoting Hindi language and culture through varied events.

Shri Sanjay Thakkar from New York Life insurance  welcomed the Honorable judges, Meenu Purushottam, Ashish Sen Gupta and  Sandeep Ghosh , who are stalwarts in playback singing, percussion and classical vocal singing respectively apart from being respected teachers in their genres.

The finalists who had been selected from the semifinalist rounds held earlier that day in the Junior, Intermediate and Adult categories the regaled the audience with their renditions of melodious Hindi film songs. The applause after each performance was a testament to the talent, effort and dedication of these performers  of all ages towards this event. Audience members also made note of their favorite performers so they could vote for the People’s choice award in each category. The judges listened intently and made constructive remarks after each performance.

This was followed by a Hindi Manch presentation” Mughal-e-Azam”,  which was a vignette of key scenes from this landmark film culminating in the famous Qawwali “ Teri mehfil mein kismet aazmakar hum bhi dekehnge”. Directed by Shri Mohan Dali, conceived by Preetesh Shrivastava, sound by Jawed Wahid, scores by Anish Khanzode and stage by Shriniwas Sane, the play starred Syed Ali Rizvi, Alok Asoor, Satish Palayam, Java Joshi, Ajay Jaisingh, Namita Miglani, Malini Varafdarajan, Gopika Narula, Sanjay Jain, Ashish Gupta, Subhodh Shetty and Ashish Gupta Qawwali was sung by Meena Sundaram and Soumya Shri Sandeep, Hindi Manch SaReGaMa winnder 2011 accompanied by Amal Jawa, Seema Agrawal, Gayatri Aryan, Aditi Sheth, Pallavi Gupta, Gopika Narula, Sneh Jaisingh, Supriya Kulkarni and Meesha Acharya,

After a brief intermission with delicious food catered by Masala Art, the remaining finalists performed their songs. As the judges deliberated their decision, another item was presented by Hindi Manch. This was from the movie “Teesri Kasam”. This was also directed by Shri Mohan Dali and conceptualized by Preetesh Shrivastava, this included a scene from the film starring Alok Asoor, Swathi Sane and Sanjay Jain followed by the vigorous  group song “ Chalat Musafir moh liya re” performed by Shirish Nimgaonkar , Hindi Manch SaReGaMaPa winner 2010 and group including  Shrinivas Sane, Subhodh Shetty, Anurag Nagpal, Bibek Das, Vijay Ejenkar and Vikram Kulkarni.

Best in class quality Sound was by Jawed Wahid with assistance on sound scoring from Anish Khanzode and Lights by Sujit Potdar and Hetal Joshi.
Guest performers Shraddha Agrawal and Mohan Subramaniam sang the melodious duet” Naam gum jaayega” and Isha Phadke mesmerized the audience with a dance tribute to Madhuri Dixit.

It was now time for announcing the winners of SaReGamaPa 2012 and this brought the memorable evening to its grand end.
The winners of Hindi Manch Sa Re Ga Ma Pa 2012 are:

Baal category (8-14):

Sachi Badola (1st) (and also Winner of the Public Choice Award!)
Neha Panke (2nd)
Juhi Lalwani (3rd)

Yuvaa category (15-21) :

Radhika Jangi (1st) (and also Winner of the Public Choice Award!)
Minerva Teli (2nd)
Shailee Shah (3rd)

Praveen Category (22 and above) :

Narendra Pyasi (1st) (and also Winner of the Public Choice Award!)
Varsha Paranjpe (2nd)
Valentino Almeida (3rd)

Hindi Manch' is a non-profit organization whose aim is to bring people who know Hindi, or who want to know Hindi together by cultural, social and educational programs and activities.  We welcome everyone who enjoys Hindi language irrespective of their belonging to any caste, creed or culture. Here Hindi/Urdu refers to all the dialects like Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Bra, Khariboli ...to name a few.

Hindi Manch thanks all its team members, volunteers and well-wishers who contributed in so many ways to make this event a grand success.
The event received many compliments, some of them are:

“My family has been attending Hindi Manch SaReGaMaPa events since 2010 and this is our 7th event for Hindi Manch. The best thing I like about your team is that they always surprise us. In every event we think that you set up the bar so high, but you guys always beat your own record”.
“Noble objective and unparalleled quality make your event ‘not to be missed’. Looking forward for the announcement for your next program”.
“This was my first time at Hindi Manch program.. I joined with my family and few friends and all of us enjoyed the event so much that we will never miss any of your programs in future. I wish I knew about Hindi Manch earlier”

“A perfect mix of items in the event – beautiful songs by participants, Mughal-e-azam, village teesri kasam scene and song, excellent  MCing, you kept us engaged throughout the program and we enjoyed every bit of it”..

The organization received many requests to host another singing event with all the semifinalist again. The team is working on planning and will announce the next Hindi Manch event soon.

So long, everybody, see you at the next event presented by Hindi Manch!

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