Houstonians you have talent. Wow what a concert. On Saturday, February 20, 2010, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of Houston hosted donor appreciation concert inviting local artists to perform. They were fantastic. More than 900 people gathered at Stafford Center and enjoyed mesmerizing concert.

The performers for the evening were Kashmira Nayak, Akshay Anaokar, Avi Gadkari, Ruchira Shah, Uma Mantravadi, Ramesh Krishnamurthi, his son Ashwin Krishnamurthi on Guitar, Kamal Haji on Keyboard accompanied by Dexter Raghunanan on the Tabla. Charming Kashmira and Dashing Avi were the Emcees of the evening and did a great job.

The musical evening started sharp at 8:00 PM with a warm welcome by Nikhil Mehta, the co-chairperson of the event and Ekal Volunteer of Houston chapter. The artists entertained the audience with old and new songs. Ruchira started the evening with prayer and devotional songs. All performers did an excellent  job but Charming Kashmira and Indian idol fame Akshay were not just singing they were dancing and engaged the audience. Some from the audience came on the stage and danced with them. They involved the audience in clapping and the selection of their songs was just right for this crowd. Akshay and Avi sang solo songs as well as duets. The king of Gazals, Ramesh with his guitar performed very well and he performed a classical tune with his son Ashwin. Uma sang variety of songs and the famous Sathiyaa song “Chupke se lag ja gale” and left the audience spellbound. Kamal was really ‘Kamal’, true to the meaning of his name made the audience cry by presenting a song titled “Maa” from the movie “Tare Jameen par” which he dedicated to all the mothers. All artists could have kept the program going for some more time but the program had to end. The last patriotic song “Aye mere vatan ke logo”  by Ruchira later joined by all artists brought the audience to their feet. Joseph Pally, president of Z cubes, Inc., delivered the Ekal mission and message. He spoke very eloquently and donated 400 copies of his book “Fail Fast Move Faster“ to the audience constituting of Ekal supporters & donors. The vote of thanks was delivered by Naren Chavda one of the senior volunteer of Houston Chapter. The famous Ekal “Chai” with spicy munching & crackers were served at the intermission.

At this event, Ekal contributed $500 for Haiti earthquake relief fund and the check was presented to Swapan Dhairyavan , the President of India Culture Center (ICC) and Vasudev Singh and Suryansh Purwar from Sewa International. Ekal also extended collaborative hand and invited Sewa International (http://www.sewainternational.org), Gujarati Samaj of Houston and Shanti (http://www.shantichoir.org) “A Journey of Peace - a community performance that explores the meaning and message of peace” program organizers to have their booths in the lobby with the ultimate AIM for SEVA.

Ekal works exclusively in tribal and rural India, operating currently 27,041 schools and teaching 723,123 students. Ekal Vidyalaya goes beyond mere literacy. Apart from its goal of achieving the national standards of Minimum Level of Learning (MLL) for its students, Ekal Vidyalaya also seeks to empower the village community for its own self-development. Ekal Vidyalaya solicits complete involvement of the local community and aims at making the school self-reliant in a period of five to seven years. For more information, please visit http://www.ekal.org.

By Meera Kapur, Ekal volunteer