Thanksgiving Celebration in Devon

This annual Thanksgiving event has been organised by Smaran for the past 10 years – firstly in his own home and for the last 4 years in Buckland on the Moor. The simple premise is to come together and express our gratitude to existence in the form of dancing, singing, sharing of our exquisite culinary skills, lots of humour and the meeting of old and new friends.

As well as a huge vegetarian feast for which everyone brought festive food, there were many highlights in the action-packed 6 hours of entertainment extravaganzas. To name but a few: Yatro`s Heart Dance; songs by Neera and Raj with group singing; Mayavati's beautiful prayer of gratitude; Nisheetha's sweet song from the First World War; Dimitri, Boris and Igor (Prageet, Sudhi and Adarsha) for their hilarious 'radio episode at the dentist'...

And then dancing to a hot set of live music by our popular and much loved band Presence (Surabhi, Adarsha, Prabodh, Tarisha, and Manu), finishing off with disco dancing to fantastic music which Darshita put together.

I was really amazed at how much creativity and playfulness just kept bubbling up throughout the whole evening.

We were all blessed to be able to celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving.

text by Amitabh and photos by Samarpan – December 2008

Contact: Amitabh 01984 642208 – amitabhch (@) tiscali.co.uk