Bhojpuri Parivar In
Muscat
It
all started in the second quarter of year 2004. Mohammed Irshad Ahmed
Siddiqui, who had been to a Gujarati program in July 2004 in Muscat was
queried by few of the Gujaratis whether he had any native language? Pat
came reply from Mohammed Irshad that yes we are very proud that we speak
Bhojpuri. He didn’t sleep that night as the language Bhojpuri and its
promotion was haunting his mind. The very next day he discussed with lot
of Bhojpuri speaking people but unfortunately he didn’t received the
kind of encouragement what he had thought of.
On August 14, 2004, he
left for India on annual leave and during his vacation he was only
thinking of means and ways to promote Bhojpuri in Oman which is 2500kms
away from India.
On his return back from
India on October 6, 2004 he started discussing with some of the like
minded Bhojpurians regarding promoting his mother tongue.
On the first ever
Bhojpuri meet approximately 120 people gathered and to this gathering Mr
Arun Kumar Shrivastav had addressed for the first time in Bhojpuri. This
had strummed the linguistic chord of every Bhojpurian present in the
meeting. This meet had shown the formation of a Bhojpuri group and the
following — Mohammed Irshad, Mohammed Osama Rawat, Arun Kumar Srivastav
and Sanjay Kumar Tiwari — took the responsibility to take the Bhojpuri
caravan ahead.
The second meet took
place just after a week which was attended by the office-bearers and in
the meeting there was a discussion on how to start promotion of Bhojpuri
language. Everyone suggested something but finally Mohammed Irshad’s
suggestion got approved anonymously by all the committee members. The
suggestion was made to do a Bhojpuri Musical Dhamaka in order to bring
maximum numbers of Bhojpurians under one umbrella (Oman’s total
population is 2.34million) and Bhojpuri speaking population amounts to
10,000 and above.
On December 22, 2005, a
musical show of Kalpana Patwari and Manoj Tiwari was planned but due to
some technical fault in the Indian stars returned from the airport and
could not make it. Despite all these odds (having obtained sponsorships,
invitations distributes) it was decided to go ahead with the show with
the local talents — Sanjana Mohandoss and Jasreen Fazil.
Irshad by then had done
all he could to train local Keralite girls for singing songs. These
local Malayali girls proved to be a hot show with the audience to the
tune of 1800 plus.
From the same stage it
was announced that the next Musical show will be hosted on January 19,
2006 for which already Kalpana Patwari and Manoj Tiwari had given their
consent to participate. Also, it was reiterated that the same passes
will be valid for the musical show.
Less than a month and as
the days flew by — the day had finally come for the next musical show.
Though it was already publicised that Kalpana Patwari and Manoj Tiwari
are going to come, there was disappointment when Manoj Tiwari failed to
keep his promise despite of travel arrangements being made.
The show, however, went
ahead with Kalpana and the local talents who already had performed on
the first stage performing. Kalpana set the stage on fire by her
versatile vocal capabilities. Audiences to the tune of 2000 plus went
berserk and it was learnt later that approximately 76 chairs in the
Sheraton Hotel lawns were broken by the frenzied fans. Interestingly it
has to be noted that this country’s law doesn’t permit to do any show
beyond 23.30hrs but this show went up to 00.15 hrs. Finally the audience
had to requested to calm down and allow the show to be wound up.
At any point of time
there was no feeling that there was a void due to non presence of Manoj
Tiwari as the local Malayali singers flavoured into Bhojpuri tune
transported the audience into the soothing eternal experience.
Kalpana felt at home in
this alien Country by the love bestowed on her by the Bhojpurians in
Oman.
Using this stage Irshaad
announced that before February 15 the Bhojpuri wing will be registered
with the Indian Social Club, Muscat and to our sheer delight Bhojpuri
Wing got registered on February 14, 2006 as Mohammed Irshad as the
convener. Sanjay Tiwari was nominated the co-convener, while Mohammed
Osama Rawat was
Again it was decided to
conduct another musical show with the local talents and also by inviting
Bharat Sharma Vyas, Tarun Toofani and by having the gracious presence of
Mr B.N.Tiwari, under the banner of Indian Social Club, Bhojpuri Wing.
Everything went very
smoothly and finally the show date came. On September 21, 2006 Sheraton
Hotel lawn got decorated again to host the musical show.
First time in the history
of Bhojpuri program in Oman this show witnessed two changes — the
programme was hosted by a pure Bhojpurian Manoj Kumar Ojha, mechanical
engineer by profession, who left no leaf unturned to conclude this
extravaganza.
The another Bhojpurian
was Anjali Sharma, a student of Indian School Wadi Kabir, who did a
dance number to a foot-tapping Hindi film song.
The four-hour show had
witnessed number of songs sung by versatile Malayali singers and most of
the Bhojpuri lyrics were written and later composed by Naaz Nirmohi
(Mohammed Irshad).
It was Ms Sanjana
Mohandoss, who received the maximum applause from the audience as well
as from the visiting singers Bharat Sharma and Tarun Toofani.
This little genie is the
powerhouse of energy who has kept audience to tap their foot. Bharat
Sharma ’Vyas’ and Tarun Toofani sung three songs each. They were
overwhelmed to see the Bhojpuri wing’s preparedness and got completely
amused to see the local singers singing pure Bhojpuri songs and keeping
the audience on their foot. They really felt at home and promised to
look forward to participate in any further show in Oman.
This show was concluded
by patriotic song in Hindi penned by Mohammed Irshad and sung by Sanjan
Mohandoss and Jasreen Fazil. The curtains came down with all the
artistes singing the National Anthem.
We can’t forget the
effort put by the following people without whom the programme would have
been a success.
M.S.Jha (Sohar), Basheeruddin, Ubedurrahman, Jawed, Alamgir, Babulal
Kanaujia, Anita Prasad and T.K. Sharma.
