KASSI- Diwali celebrations in Dundalk Ireland 2022

Last updated Oct 24, 2022

Krishna Academy of Social Sciences Ireland (KASSI) – Indians in Dundalk, is an Indian organization for all Indians living in County Louth, Ireland. It celebrated the Deepawali event ( Festival of Lights ) on Saturday, the 15th of October , 2022 at the Kilcurry Resource Centre, Dundalk . The event was started with Gayatri Mantra and Ganesh Vandana recited by young children from the age of 5 years to 13 years.

Sonal Srivastava, our Hindi Teacher, who is teaching our young children voluntarily from the last three years, has trained them to recite these Sanskrit slokas.

Luxhami Puja and Lighting the Diwali lamp were performed by our Guests and KASSI Diwali Team.

Different cultural performances, including Bollywood dances, songs, Traditional Irish Dances as well as Lithuanian traditional Dances were performed by many different national talented artists.

Prof (Dr) Dilip Mahapatra (Chair), Dr. Pardeep Sayal (Secretary), and Mr. Durgesh Tiwari (Treasurer), welcomed the distinguished guests, Mr. Fergus O’Dowd, TD from County Louth, the Garda inspector Mr. Darren Kirwan and the Garda Kate Patterson from the Dundalk Garda Division . Other guests, Mrs. Supriya & Ravinandan Pratap Singh, Mr. & Mrs. Rajesh Joshi, Dr. Deepak Kumar & his wife Mona and Mrs. Neha Bisht & her husband Jagdish, from different Indian groups from Dublin also attended our celebrations.

The event was hosted by Mrs. Bindu Nair, who was the anchor for the evening and her husband Mr. Santosh Nair took in-charge of Photography and Video. Mr. Rajesh Joshi ji from E-Yogi Gurukul interviewed our Kassi Team members and audience members. He also video recorded our event proceedings. He further, Youtubed Kassi’s video recording – “ Diwali 2022 by Kassi Dundalk Ireland” same night; worth watching it.

High lights of the event were the Fashion show, English Songs, Tamil Beats dance, Traditional Classical fusion Dance, Hip Hop, Irish dance, Indian Classical Bharatanatyam Dance, Lithuanian Group Dance and Memories Band. In the fashion show young children wearing different Indian state costume depicted diversity in Indian society. Thanks to the hard work done by Shilpi Srivastava, Sonal Srivastave and their team.

The whole event was an integration of Indian, Irish as well as Lithuanian Culture and the audience was spell bound to the event.

Bingo, Antakshri and DJ Dance excited everyone in the hall. Fire work was arranged and displayed by Manju Roy . Young children enjoyed every moment of it. Indian cuisines dinner was prepared by our Local Sitar Restaurant and was served by Manju Roy and team.

The entire event was possible due to the whole hearted participation of our directors and volunteers which included Rishi Sobrun, Ravikant Pandey, Sonal Shrivastava, Pankaj Samuel, Pujan Srivastava, Sikha Pandey, Manju Roy, Kavneet, Sachin, Jayesh, Vighnesh, Surovit Roy, Sahil Kohli and his team members.

Our sponsors Crown Plaza Hotel, Supervalu, Dr. Dara Mishra, Hickey Pharmacy, The Grafton Barber, Country Fresh and Sitar Restaurant, all were very gracious to support our event.

Kassi thanks Ravikant Pandey, Pankaj Samuel and Sachin for active participation for helping in selling the event tickets, Raffle tickets and Bingo tickets; Pujan Shrivastava and Surovit Roy for designing Diwali posters, flyers and for advertisement on social media; Kassi also thanks Kavneet Kainth for arranging financial support from Arts Council, Dundalk and Rishi Sobrun for arranging exciting prizes from Crown Plaza for our Bingo and Raffle activities.

The Rangoli, stage decorations and our Kassi photo display area, all were designed & prepared with beautiful flowers and lovely Rangoli Colours by Sonal Shrivastava, Shilpi Srivastava, Nikita Dhadwal, Kinjal Mistry, Shushma Santhosh, Ashwathi Santhosh, Sowmya Shrivastava,Sanjita Roy, Priyanshi kumari, Steffi Chako, Narendran sadasivam, Shikha Pandey, Rinku Tiwari, Dr Dhara Mishra, Kavneet kainth, Kamal Kainth, Adele sobrun.

Far the listeners of Dundalk FM radio, the concept of celebration of Diwali was explained in the studio by Kassi Team members Shilpi Srivastava, Steffi Chako and Narendran Sadasivam and it was further enhanced by Kritika, Bindu and Adele Sobrun on the day of our celebrations at Kilcurry Resource Centre.

A vote of thanks was given by Mr. Durgesh Tiwari and Dinner was served.

News by Mr. Durgesh Tiwari.