Fun 4 All As New Club Takes Off
The Club 4 All, a newly formed social club, held its inaugural icebreaker event at the Bombay Grill restaurant on February 28. Around 300 members thronged the banquet hall, for a long evening that included a social hour, a well organized cultural show and dancing.
The first half of the cultural program included a vocal and musical extravaganza by UNISON, a group from UGA, Athens. The performers took the audience back to its roots with their patriotic repertoire that included Vande Mataram, Raghuveera Tumko Mein and the Indian national anthem.
This was followed by a Koli dance choreographed by Kumud Savla and energetically performed by the students of her Nritya Natya Kala Bharti.
Singer/guitarist Sam Johnson engaged the audience next with his soulful melody and a delightful version of Ek chatura naar from the film Padosan.
The tempo of the program changed with a ?Dance Dhamaka' by a dance group from Georgia Tech.The dances were choreographed by Prem. A Bhangra dance item by a Punjabi group followed.
The final item for the first half was the ?Dreamgirls', a dance sequence performed by six talented young women who danced to Bollywood hits from the 50s to 2000. Each performer took on a genre that suited her style. There was cabaret, mujra, disco and romantic songs.
The emcees for the evening, Parijat Chandra and Umesh Rathie did a good job in coordinating the various segments of the program, often punctuating the proceedings with wit and mutual camaraderie.
Members took the dance floor in the second half of the program, with music provided by DJ Ronak, after which several karaoke singers showed their musical talents. There was also shayari (poetry) by Nagesh Gunta and comedy by Lucky Jain.
Ranjan Dattagupta, who is credited with the idea of starting The Club 4 All spoke about the objectives of the club. "We initially wanted to start the club in a small way," he said. "We didn't realize that the support and enthusiasm would be so overwhelming. The main objective of the club is to promote Indian culture and encourage our children (to understand more about Indian culture)."
Dattagupta also introduced the seven Atlanta families that were instrumental in founding the club- Parijat and Sandeep Chandra, Indra and Ranjan Dattagupta, Ranjana and Mohit Dhir, Nisha and Sanjay Mannan,Vicky and Sona Narang, Falguni and Rakesh Panday and Uma and RD Sharma.
"One of the core beliefs of the club's founding members is to be inclusive," says a press release issued by The Club 4 All. "That is, bringing together individuals, groups, and communities in an effort to integrate and foster camaraderie and friendship. The club looks forward to reaching out and providing a sense of fun, closeness, and learning."
For Poonam Nath who has two children aged six and seven, it is the promise of promoting cultural awareness that is a big draw. "As the community grows, we need a central meeting point, where we can meet up, socialize and acquaint our children with our culture," she said. "We have several such clubs in India. We definitely needed one here."
The club is planning two other programs in the immediate future. One will be held in early July, followed by a similar extravaganza in fall. Auditions for the programs are on.
-Veena Rao
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