Ekal Vidayalaya’s Electrifying musical Evening Review & Photos by Girish Modi- Atlanta Dunia -

Ekal Vidayalaya’s Electrifying musical Evening
Review & Photos by Girish Modi

Ekal Vidyalaya’s South-east Region chapter in Atlanta celebrated reaching of One Million Children milestone with a musical extravaganza on March 3rd at the Impact Conference Hall inside Global Mall and it was a sellout event attended by 400+ patrons.

Ekal had invited two young rising singers Samir Date and Dipalee Somaiya from Mumbai to help them celebrate the milestone and raise more funds to continue its mission to eradicate illiteracy among the children from rural and tribal India with holistic empowerment. It was singers’ ninth performance of the tour that will span across several cities over the five month period.

As always, Ekal includes a sumptuous dinner in its modest ticket price and tonight’s event was no exception. All the attendees were served first an appetizer “thandai” and then the dinner at around 7 pm. The dinner was catered by Ashiana restaurant that included gajjar halwa and gulab jamun as desserts. While people were eating dinner a film of Ekal’s activites was shown on a large screen. After the dinner, the program started at around 8 pm. Hostess Radhika Suda asked Shiv Aggarwal to light a traditional diya. After that Roopa Nene recited a Ganesh Stuthi. Radhika then asked the audience to stand up and pay respects to the national anthems of USA and India.

A young student named Geetika Jape performed an invocatory dance in praise of Lord Ganesha which she had choreographed herself along with her teacher Nilima Gaddam. Geetika also charmed the audience with her hip-hop dances during a couple of songs along with other female members.

Radhika then introduced Dipalee. Dipalee stormed the citadel of music when she was only nine years old, walking away with prizes and awards galore. Her recently released solo for the film CHOORIYAN (one of the many movies she gave playback for) has been very well received. She represented Gujarat State in the SA RE GA MA mega challenge and was a winner and won the hearts of audiences and the judges.

Dipalee came on the stage and started off with two numbers of Geeta Dutt – ello main hari piya and babuji dhire chalna. After that Dipalee introduced her singing partner. SamirDate is a well known name in the music industry and has been the playback singer for numerous Hindi films like Parampara, Jazbaat, Fauj and more recently, Emotional Atyachar and Hang Up. Samir has performed at innumerable live shows in India and abroad. Samir is a prolific stage performer and has performed all over the world. Samir has worked with Yash Chopra, Asha Bhosle and other bollywood artists. Samir had made various TV appearances, including in SA-RE-GA-MA as a judge. Anchor of show Dhum Dhamaka and hosted 80 episodes. Disciple of mastreo Suresh Wadkar, Samir’s first break came in Maine Pyar kiya English version when he was just 17. Samir has composed and sung in album Chalte Jana Hai. Acted, composed, and sung TV series Aulad for Tanuja Chandra. Son of composer Ravi Date, nephew of singer Arun Date Samir is prolific and versatile stage performer.

Samir started off with yaara main kya karoon from film Rab ne banadi jodi and was well received by the audience. After that they sang two duets – chura liya hai tumne (Yaadon ki Baraat) and piyu bole (Parineeta). They also sang another sufiana duet. Dipalee continued the mood with two of Asha Bhosle’s well known songs – dam maro dam and ye mera dil pyar ka diwana.

It was now Samir’s turn and he gave tribute to Kishore Kumar by singing his two famous songs – aane wala pal jaane wala hai and aye mere dil ke chain in very convincing voice. Since Samir is known as “soul of Rafi”, he sang a medley of three songs from film Dosti in Rafi’s voice. The forth song Chahunga main tujhe brought back Rafi’s Saheb’s memory. Dipalee came back and sang Jhumka gira re in Asha Bhosle’s inimitable style.

To bring tempo to the music, Samir started rang barso in Amitabh Bacchan’ voice that brought a few people near the stage dancing and jumping around. They continued dancing when Samir sang another Holi song Holi khele Raghuvir.

After a 30-minute break when concert continued, it was pouring outside. But the mood inside was not dampening. Samir engaged the crowd to sing along with him badan pe sitare by coaching them when to say jara paas aao mere sath gao.

It was time for taking requests from the audience. Artists got so much overwhelmed with requests that they limited their singing to first few lines in order to save time. After most of the requests were complied with, Samir once again excited the audience by imitating Shammi Kapoor and singing his popular numbers such as babar dekho, bade hai dil ke kale and chahe koi mujhe janglee kahe.

Dipalee gave tribute to Madan Mohan and sang few lines of a couple of his compositions in Lata Mangeshkar’s voice. Speaking of ghazals, Samir sang a couple of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s (jiya dhadak dhadak) and Jagjit Singh’s (baat nikle gi to) ghazals using harmonium. The concert won’t be complete if O. P. Nayyar’s compositions are not included. Upon audience’s request they sang isharo isharo mein and diwana hua badal duets. Samir did sang one ghazal in classical raag malkauns.

Both Samir and Dipalee, having been blessed with striking personas, are prolific and lively stage performers and have been winning audiences worldwide. They always kept the audience on their toes.

The last item of the night was this tantalizing song “kajara re…” which brought every one clapping and two ladies (Geetika and Uma) to the dance floor.

Throughout the evening these two singers used only two musicians – one keyboard player (Samit Puddar) and the other octopad player (Sanjeet Birha). With such a small orchestra, both Dipalee and Samir belted out nostalgic old songs as well as newer songs for about three hours. While Shushma Patel provided picturesque backdrop in blue and white wavy design and soothing light effects, Salim Panjwani managed the sound system.

Ekal Vidyalaya volunteers throughout the concert appealed for generous donations in away of pledging for sponsorship of one or more school. Each school’s sponsorship was tagged at $365 and they received pledges for over 50 schools. Shiv Aggarwal gave vote of thanks to the artists, Ashiana restaurant, volunteers and supporters.

Ekal has over one million children all ready taking basic education through 36,000 one teacher one room schools in India. Its goal is reaching 100,000 schools by 2020. Beside the Basic education Ekal is also working towards the improvement of the whole village such as hygiene, better farming, cottage industry and Road system. For more information visit www.ekal.org.

The concert was awesome, spell binding if not, mind blowing. Both Samir and Deepali have an enchanting voice, rare to find another. Samir is gifted with a rich voice and so is Dipalee. Their melodious voices were still resonating in the depth of their hearts when audience left the hall little after midnight.