Aarohan 2010 - Event 3: Talk and Tabla

- By Girish Mahajan (Gary)

In today's hectic life... we always are searching for that one peaceful moment away from the usual humdrum of work-home balance. We go for a short trip, trekking or to a movie etc. But this time YUVA decided to present opportunity to try something different and the reason for that was the T-Shirt Launch event of Aarohan 2010 (Yuva's 15 year celebrations).

What was earlier supposed to be a casual gathering to launch and give away the T-shirts, now had a different format, with suggestions from Pramod and Sujay to give this otherwise simple event a valuable twist. In last YUVA meeting Pramod suggested his professor for a small talk on “Sustainability” and Sujay had word with Rahul Phopali and entertaining tabla player and a YUVA member. Hence the birth of event number 3 “Talk and Tabala ”

The program was on evening of 19th June, 2010. The program started with a talk on “Our role in sustainability and sustainable development” by Dr. Monto Mani, Assistant Professor at the Center for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore which later was followed by Rahul Pophali's performance.

The talk was a small attempt to reveal a great thought about life that a normal person normally doesn't think of. He emphasized the number of thoughts on different aspects of life. A person can learn a lot if he/she fulfills the desire as per the western philosophy but eastern culture says person can be happy and developed without any desire. He explained prominence of life with real life examples. One should change his attitude towards life, is the solution to make life more sustainable.

Rahul Pophali is one of the most versatile tabla player in today’s younger generation. A dazzling performer and an incessant innovator,He progressed to advanced training in the Punjab gharana style under Pt. Nishikant Barodekar (senior disciple of Ustad Alla Rakha Khansaheb). Rigorous training by Nishikantji and occasional guidance from Ustad Zakir Hussain over last ten years shaped Rahul into a promising tabla player. It was amazing experience to watch Rahul perform. He also explained the meaning of different tabla strokes during his performance. So thats entertainment spiced with some Tabla gyan :) Both events made the evening a wonderful one. Thanks to Rahul and Monto sir from YUVA.

And YES... finally the much-awaited T-shirts were launched too, after all that was one of the main event of the evening. Great work by the T-shirt team!

Some photos from the event:

Aarohan 2010 - Event 3: Talk and Tabla : Poster

Aarohan 2010 - Event 2: Crafts Workshop : Poster

Click - Photography Workshop: Thoughts and Thanks

The Photography Workshop, CLICK went about well and as scheduled on 21st March 2010. Here are some thoughts and thanks on behalf of Yuva to the people responsible for it.

Let me start with a BIG THANKS to Ashish Vanjari for conducting the workshop. Thanks to Sujay, Nikhil, Gary, Mangesh and Onkar for not only organizing the workshop, but also working out details such as power back-up, food& snacks. Another BIG thanks to Maharashtra Mandal, Bangalore for making available the Mandal hall and facilities and mostly their continued support to us which is very encouraging. Thanks to everyone else who contributed alongside.

Around 28 people had registered, most of them turned up barring 3-4 who dropped out last minute due to emergencies. There were more interested, but did not register due to prior commitments. The age group of the participants was approximately 13 - 35 years. About 10 of the participants were a mix of non-Yuva and non-Marathi. Thanks to all those who showed interest and participated making this a big success, or should I say they made 'CLICK' click. Needless to say, it was a great success.

Ashish did a great job to bring along prints of his work, which not only showed his caliber as a passionate photographer, but also awed the audience, who browsed past while we waited during the minor start-up delays. The content was a good mix of the technical aspects, practical attempts, creative theories, and some story bytes from Ashish's experience. I am very sure most of them have a new perspective towards photography, have new ideas and will look at their cameras for better execution of their ideas into better and stunning photos.

The audience was largely interactive, with lot of queries and inputs too. Am sure they had suggestions/comments which I guess they must have put down in their feedback forms. Looking forward to the next part, where the next level of photography will be explored. Yuva will be sending updates on this soon.

Toward the end of the workshop, there was a job to hand to close the event as well, collections had to be reviewed payments had to be made, winding up, helping Ashish wind up... the organizers' job wasn't done. There was an unforeseen shortage of funds, I guess due to the few dropouts. But Yuva in its usual way was quick to act... all the Yuva members present go out additional contributions and help match-up, not only that they also helped in the winding up process as well. Finally the event was a success in the true sense; it got U and V together. Here's hoping that more people come ahead to be a part upcoming events.

Click here for photos!