ACCOLADES: All the participants were awarded certificate of appreciation by IWA President Jotshna Dey and Vice President Renu Malhotra.
As part of their yearly programme, the Indian Women’s Association (IWA) recently had their September get-together at L’etoile Hotel.
The theme of the gathering was to celebrate the rich heritage of Indian culture through various dance forms. Asha Shiju and Padma Singh welcomed the guests and the members. A minute of silence was observed in remembrance of an ex-IWA member Benedicta Jathan, who passed away in August.
Elsabete Reis, Image Consultant and Style Advisor, was the guest speaker of the day. IWA said, “Through her presentations, she enlightened the ladies about the various styles and fashion that one need to focus on. The highlight of the evening was the dances from various parts of India performed by the members of IWA.”
While Suparna Ghosh presented Bengali folk dance, Chandragururani performed a dance from Uttarakhand, followed by a semi-classical dance by Rajni Malviya, and Tamil folk dance by Nirmala Raghuraman. Poonam Tanwar performed a Rajasthani dance, while Tamil group folk dance was performed by Varshini Gopal, Lata Venkatesan, Nitya Shankar, Vijayalakshmi Radhakrishnan, and Vijayalakshmi Ganesh.
The Managing Committee members presented a fusion dance in view of Eid. A memento was presented to the guest speaker, and all the participants were awarded certificate of appreciation by President Jotshna Dey and Vice President Renu Malhotra. Sunita Chaturvedi gave the vote of thanks. The evening ended with some fun and games, and of course, feasting on the delicious food prepared by L’etoile.
Dey told Community, “I thank and appreciate the efforts put in by the members to present dances that wonderfully depicted the richness of Indian dance forms from across the nation. I also thank Elisabete for the wonderful talk she gave on how we should carry ourselves and how small changes in our everyday lives can help us.”
Earlier in March, the IWA celebrated both the International Women’s Day and the Indian festival of colours, Holi, as the newly elected IWA committee for 2015 – 2016 made sure that it was a fun-filled ladies’ day out.
The primary aim of this sole Indian women’s organisation in Qatar is “to bring the Indian ladies and families together and organise periodical meetings of the members to exchange expertise in various cultural social fields.” Its mission is “to raise maximum funds through its activities and to help the non-profit organisations involved in child education and charitable organisations.”
One of the most popular annual programmes hosted by the IWA is the Interschool Quiz Competition, the 18th edition of which, last October, saw participation from around 700 students from 16 schools.
In an interview, a day before last year’s competition, quizmaster Mohan Kapur had said, “To put together this Interschool contest single-handedly, single-mindedly, with no commercial consideration to it, is quite spectacular on the part of IWA.”
Quiz-designer Deb Kumar Mitra, too, had expressed a similar view. “When a lot of money gets pumped into the business of TV quiz shows like KBC, the entire money pool for other quiz competitions disappears. Seven years ago, it wasn’t difficult to get sponsors for a school quiz competition. But today, there are hardly any batters for it. That’s why the IWA Interschool Quiz Competition, a stage show with no television coverage, entering the 18th year is phenomenal,” he had said. This will be the 19th year of the competition.
