January 1st we had the Sindhi prayers at the Mandir that was attended by the Hindu Council of Kenya Chairperson Mrs. Sujata KotamrajuJi.
It felt like I was meeting her after very long ( her US trip and my India trip) so we got talking.

She mentioned that there’s a Hindi event coming up before the one we are planning for HCK. The very next day I received a call from Abhijeet Gupta of Kenbharti Center informing me that the High Commission of India want to celebrate Vishwa Hindi Divas at their premises with Hindi Poetry ( Kavi Sammelan) . Now the reason behind this call was evident: I was told to organize it, get the poets, coordinate with them and then select from their poems, get their details etc etc

I started working towards it on the 3rd day of January and it was just a week to the DDay of 10th January. All the hard work and phone calls, messages became worthwhile when it was liked by the audience, by Kenbharti, by IHC as well as HCK.

With little bit of effort and practice Sujata Ji managed to read through her Hindi speech ( no, I don’t use chat GPT) and it sounded so perfect. My joy lay in her speech as it was not easy for her.
Sharing some pictures from the event.

Monica Gokaldas