It was a cold evening soon after the fall. Located amidst the vivid array of foliage, off the Aqueduct Road was the Niskayuna Recreation Center – the venue for the TATA DIWALI CELEBRATIONS scheduled at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday the October 22^nd 2000.

The TATA FOLKS gathered at the center – Bachelors and the families – all dressed in their best attire with great enthusiasm for the gala event. The center bustled with activity as the organizers – Somina, Basavaraj, Raghu, Vijesh, Konkat, Chandrasekara (Rao), Darshita, Chandrasekara (Natarajan), Ashish, Anupama & others were making all the arrangements for the mega show.

Soon, the show took off without much ado on an auspicious note, with a welcome address and prayer by Mr. Somina sarma. Then our BRM Mr. Anil Ron greeted the gathering with "Happy DIWALI TO ONE & ALL" and said that the event should be a grand success & one that should be cherished by the TATA COMMUNITY for many years to come. Snacks & Sodas were served throughout the events.

The events unfolded one after the other compered nonchalantly by Mr. Chandru and Ms. Darshitha, starting with the Fancy dress competition for kids organized by Dr. Vasumathi Prasad and Mrs. Shailaja Rajesh. Niranjani Prasad as Bharatanatyam dancer, Nivedita Prasad as Godess Shakthi, Vishal Rajesh as an actor & Priyanka Karthikeyan as a Princess stole the show. Gifts were presented to all the kids.

Then Pradeep Senapati pinned the audience to their seats as he sang an Oriya bhajan on Lord Jagannatha of Puri in his melodious voice.

Then came the great 40 minute entertainer – "EAST 0r WEST" – a skit packed with comedy, directed by Raghu, casting 13 characters with 8 scenes, sending the audience in fits of laughter. Thanks to the sincere efforts of all the actors namely Vijesh, Rao, Yash, Basav, Ramgopal, Somina, Chandru, Aashish, Venky, Prithi, Narsi, Rajeev Chalak and Raghu, who had toiled so hard night after night, to present this marvelous show, that too within a very short time. The skit was truly a professional one duly rewarded by the audience with a thunderous applause & laughter. Special thanks to Kannan and Rajgopal, who helped a lot behind the scenes for this play to happen. Basav and Chandru took the total responsibility of shopping the prizes and dishwares when most of the organizers were deeply involved in skit preparation and other stalwarts like Vinod and Subhash were out of station due to unavoidable circumstances.

Raghu, a versatile person, set the center stage for a musical evening with 2 songs, a Hindi song "Mere Nina" and another a Telugu classic "Brochevarevarura" – both sung effortlessly. Housee – Jaldhi five, row 1, row 2, row 3 & full house played in between the shows, kept the audience glued to their paper chits.

Chandrasekhar Natarajan came up with another interesting event – "Passing the Buck" involving four instantaneous participants – Soundararajan, Pradeep Senapathi, Tapan Das & Atlur Nagaraj. A story is narrated to the first participant, while the other three are taken into a sound proof room. The first participant enacts the story to the second, second to the third and third to the fourth, but without uttering a word. Then the participants in the reverse order are asked to narrate the story individually. This event evoked bouts of laughter from the audience.

Then came the musical show, performed by Mr. Somina, who sang a Hindi-Telugu song "Tu Mile Dil Khile" from the film "Criminal", and also "Dekho, Maine Dekha hai Ek sapna" from film "Love Story". He was accompanied by Mr. Sekhar Das, a veteran keyboard professional, who has performed many shows in India and Abroad and the great Tabla maestro Mr. Kalpan a contemporary of Dr. Zakir Hussain. Then Mr. Sekhar Das accompanied by Mr. Kalpan also gave another performance – keying the title songs of "Dil to Pagal hai" & "Kaho naa pyar hai", soon followed by a solo performance by Mr. Kalpan on the tabla.

"Fish pond" – was the next event, in which the audience were distributed with paper slips and were asked to write anonymous comments/remarks/requests to any person of their choice. This show organized by Basav, Aashish and Darshita brought Rajnikant out of Raghu, Lalloo from Aashish and Michael Jackson from Somina.

Krishnarao (new comer to GADP), Dr. Nithya Kannan, and Mrs. Srilatha Reddy were the fortunate ones in the crowd to win prizes in a lucky dip. Also prizes were awarded to people among the audience with maximum rings (Mrs.Yash), plastic cards and cash (Rajgopal).

Finally the curtain began to fall with the prize distribution ceremony by Mr. Anil Ron, followed by the vote of thanks by Mr. Somina Sarma.

A "POT LUCK DINNER" was arranged comprising of fresh, hot, delicious and spicy food served to the TATA folks. It was a great team effort by the organizing committee and all the families and bachelors who had contributed to this event by making and serving a grand Diwali dinner.

Soon after the dinner the TATA folks engaged themselves in cleaning up the hall, arranging the chairs and picking up all the trash and returning home with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment and glorious memories to be cherished during the long days to come.