Nothing can bring people together more than their own national language and when it comes to address the day dedicated to it, it calls for a big celebration.
To mark Hindi Divas (September 14th) and the birthday of Rashtrakavi (national poet) Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (September 23rd), Maurya Kala Parisar with support from the Indian Embassy, Kuwait organized the 5th Dinkar Awards to celebrate Hindi Divas on Friday September 28th, 2018.
The event commenced with lighting the lamp by the esteemed members of MKP such as Divya Ritwik, Varun Sinha and Sabir Hussain Ansari.
Soon after, the day was sophistically orchestrated with competitions focused to empower Hindi. The three competitions pre-decided by the organizers were:
1.Debate – Social Media: More harmful than useful
2.Self-written poetry
3.Poem recitation
The spotlight was entirely on encouraging Hindi and participants in all three competitions had to perform in Hindi which was a good measure in itself to gauze their command over the language.
Anchors took charge of the dais as crowd started to gather. They were glued to their seats since the beginning in anticipation of listening to the sweetness of the language and with the promise of a day jam packed with stellar performances. Total of 81 students participated from 13 different schools. For the sake of impartial assessment, each student was assigned a number to rule out the chances of the exposure of personal details such as student’s name, school name etc. For each category, judges were assigned with criteria clearly mentioned on their judgment paper.
For debate, total of 18 students from 7 schools participated. The enthusiasm to put forward their perspective on Social Media: More harmful than useful was enthralling. Each student had two minutes to present their views on the matter and then one additional minute for the rebuttal. Evidently, the first competition showed brains at instant work.
Results are as followed:
Debate Competition (Class 9 – 12)
1st prize Batul Rokadiya SIMS
2nd prize Simran ICS Khaitan
3rd prize Abhishek S. Bade ICS Khaitan
Nothing is as fascinating as listening to something that is authentic and self-written. For the category of Self-Written Poetry, a total of 17 students from 9 schools participated. Topics chosen by them reflected the depth of young minds. It fancied quite an imagination and creativity on their part. Not only the poetry but their overall body language, sound modulation, recitation style, intonation, content quality, and power of imagination proved to be the major criteria to score. If Rashtrakavi was alive today, he would have applauded the students’ efforts himself.
This category in particular is considered most challenging among all. By the time this category rounded up, anyone could see how challenging it was going to be for the judges to decide winners.
Results are as followed:
Self-written Poetry Competition (Class 9 -12)
1st prize Kashish Rajesh Bhardwaj,Carmel School, Khaitan
2nd prize Karania Alam Safi,Integrated Indian School, Abbasiya
3rd prize Batul Rokadia,SIMS
MKP had made sure not only to feed intellect to brains but also delicious food to hungry stomachs. They had a generous arrangement of snacks and beverages for all. People relished the bites through the event albeit eating was restricted to the outside Embassy Hall only.
They say it takes brain to copy someone’s style. In the third and final competition, Poetry Recitation, a total of 38 students from 9 schools showed enthusiasm where they had to pick and practice another poet’s creation and recite verbatim on stage. Many students were screened on spot and added in the queue. While some themed their recitations on patriotism, some went with popular creations by Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan etc. The students even put an extra effort to their recitals by being dressed to match their theme thereby adding more charisma to their performance.
Results are as followed:
Poetry Recitation (Class 6 – 8)
1st prize -Tashfeem, Indian Public School, Salmiya
2nd prize Devpriya Shivaprasad, Integrated Indian School, Salmiya
3rd prize Aisha Qureshi, Integrated Indian School, Abbasiya
In order to broad base the recognition for excellence, Mauryakala also honoured the Hindi Achiever for the participating schools. One Student from different schools, nominated by the schools, was awarded with a plaque and certificate. The names of the students and their schools are mentioned below:
Kashish Rajesh Bhardwaj from Carmel School, Khaitan; Mahusun Senab from India International School, Mangaf; Ashna Susan Thomas from Indian Central School, Abbasiya; Fathema Bohra from Indian Community School, Amman Branch, Salmiya; Madhumitha Kasiviswanathan from Indian Educational School (Bhavan's), Abbasiya; Aakankshya Pratap from Indian Learners Own Academy, Abbasiya; Misbah Banu Muneer from Indian Public School, Salmiya; Arpitha Anns Joseph from Integrated Indian School, Abbasiya; Maha from Kuwait Indian School, Khaitan; Hadiya Khan from Salmiya Indian Model School; Amatullah Tapiya from Salmiya Indian Model School.
Going a step further, MKP even honoured 13 Hindi teachers from different schools for their hard work and dedication in teaching the language. Their names are as followed:
Mrs. Shikha Singh from Carmel School, Khaitan; Mrs. Monika Joshi from Indian Central School, Abbasiya; Mrs. Amandeep Kaur from Indian Community School, Junior Branch; Mrs. Accamma John from Indian Community School, Amman Branch; Ms. Swarna Saini from Indian Educational School (Bhavan's), Abbasiya; Mr. Nithin V M from Indian Educational School (Bhavan's); Mrs Richa Bhatnagar from Indian Learners Own Academy, Abbasiya; Mrs Parveen Rani from Indian Learners Own Academy, Abbasiya; Mr Rajendra Pandey from Indian Public School, Salmiya; Ms Shakila Farooq from Indian Public School, Salmiya; Ms. Tasneem Dawoodi from Integrated Indian School, Abbasiya; Mrs Sapna Joshi from Kuwait Indian School, Khaitan and Ms. Varsha from Salmiya Indian Model School, Salmiya.
To begin the prize distribution ceremony, MKP President, Mr. Sabir Hussain Ansari, welcomed and congratulated all who made the event successful and worthy of its motive. He expressed his Thanks to the very vibrant participants, teachers, parents, audience, judges and ever helpful Embassy Officials. Special mention was made of the support, guidance and encouragement by the Indian Ambassador in Kuwait, His Excellency, Mr. Jeeva Sagar. Impressed with the performance of the young participants in all the three events, Mr. Ansari praised all the participants and declared all of them as "Winners". Though, as customary, a few of them would be ranked as 1st, 2nd and 3rd among the Winners.
The event schedule will be incomplete without the mention of the gracious presence of His Excellency, Mr. Jeeva Sagar, Indian Ambassador in Kuwait. Being a humble personality himself, Mr. Sagar shared his thoughts on the highlighted language of the event. Adding more to the delight, he navigated the audience on how Hindi can help us connect. The cherry on the cake in his 10 minutes speech was, learning the art of respecting other languages while being Hindi spoken. It was well received by all.
Finally MKP General Secretary, Mr. Manoj Mishra, delivered the Vote of Thanks, where he expressed his gratitude for the participants, judges, audience, Embassy Officials, media petsons and volunteers for thier support and patronage for the noble cause. While the audience started dispersing, the organisers congratulated each other and posed for Group photographs to mark the successful occasion for memory and benchmark to surpass in the future events.
Unity makes anything possible. This event was no exception. Ranging from the background work to the speeches and shayaris on stage, the whole MKP team had come together to make the event memorable in the best of their endeavors. Manoj Mishra, General Secretary and Sabir Ansari, President MKP drove the team towards success. Background faces included Divya Ritwik, Uday Prakash, Nivedita Sinha, Sujeet Sinha, Nitin Prabhakar, Sumit Tekriwal, Syed Shabih Ahmad, Devesh Kumar, Shailesh Mishra, Asha Mishra, Sumit Kumar, Priyanka Baranwal, Sujata Kashyap, Varun Sinha, Abhay Kashyap, Supriya Singh, Neeraj Kumar, Md. Mahtabuzzaman, Mithilesh Kumar, Ujjwal Ritwik, Abdul Nakhwa and several others.