Houston Telugu Cultural Association (HTCA) celebrated “Ugadi” (Telugu New Year) festival in a grand style on April 12th, 2013 at Sri Meenakshi Temple hall. It was a phenomenal program with more than 1300 people attended.
Ugadhi event started at 3:30pm and went till 12 midnight with back to back cultural programs, dances, singing, and a grand musical concert by Tollywood playback singer Revanth and Paadutha Thiyaga fames Manisha Eerabathini & Adarsh Menon. There was a huge support from Telugu national organizations and local businesses set up their exhibits/stalls at the event.
NATA, ATA and Sri Meenakshi Temple have served as Grand Sponsors of the event. Other sponsors include New York Life, MathWizard, Mayuri Indian Restaurant, Abhiruchi Indian Restaurant and Shankara Eye Foundation.
HTCA President, Maruthi Reddy invited all the sponsors on to the stage during the program, and recognized and thanked them for their continued support.
The venue was decorated with grace and artistry with “Ganesh” idol welcoming the Telugu Houstonians. TCA Executive Committee, and TCA volunteers have worked hard to make the venue beautifully decorated reflecting the Indian traditional colors and atmosphere. The background displays on the stage as backdrops during the cultural programs have created an elegant and dynamic atmosphere. Suman Mangu ensured the participants cultural programs reporting in the scheduled order. MallikArjun Ghattamneni and TCA volunteers ensured the smooth registration process at front desk. The highlights of the program are as follows.
Houston TCA Ugadhi event started off with Deepa Prajwalanam by TCA Executive Committee followed by prayer song by Suman Mangu. As part of the main celebrations, over 200 children participated to showcase their talent in classical, folk/ film singing and dance. The classical dances provided an exciting start to the great evening. Prasad Maragani and Jyothi Pakeru anchored the cultural events until the dinner.
Then came the series of group dances under ‘classical & medley’ items in which cute little kids & teens performed excellent dances to several of movie songs mix. There were over 140 little ones synchronized very well in dancing to variety of recent hit songs. With the little ones dancing, one could see the stirring of nostalgic feelings of audience listening to songs and witnessing the dance to popular new songs which created laughter and love.
After the above, a spectacular show by Telugu Badi kids to showcase our national leaders and the culture from all the states from our country. This is was a major hit with 42 kids involved in total and the Telugu Badi teachers proved once again that they have great skills in coordinating and organizing an event like this with live speech by each kid for the total program duration of 25 minutes. Then after tasty snacks and tea/coffee made by Mayuri restaurant were served.
Then after a mix dhamaka of telugu songs continued with a fast beat and followed by group dances from various dance schools in Houston. Then came a super hit team of Gabber Singh gang with new variety comedy skit of Athaarintiki Daredi. This made hall jovial and brought the new energy to enjoy more.
Then came a fabulous dances by youth through various medley and a mix songs by bar code dance group, this made the audience to applaud every dance move. Then after a delicious dinner made by Mayuri restaurant was served and during this break stage was still running with solo songs list TCA had kept under priority list awaiting for the mind-blowing musical night.
Then started mush awaited musical night; with a start off songs by upcoming singers Adarsh Menon and Manisha Erabathini. Then came the segment of marvelous singer Revanth with a mind-blowing hit numbers. Suman Mangu anchored the musical night.
Then after TCA President Maruthi Reddy started with a Houston TCA segment to thank all sponsors NATA, ATA, New York Life, Shankara Foundation, and local restaurants Mayuri and Abhiruchi. TCA President, Maruthi Reddy introduced all 2014 TCA Executive committee members and trustees to community and applauded the most energetic team he got.
