RCM’S FIRST FULL CLUB FELLOWSHIP FOR 2020-21 PRESIDENT KAPIL CHITALE Greetings, dear Rotarians. These may be trying times, when so much of our lives has changed; an emphatic memo that our thoughts and actions on this planet need a re- alignment, a paradigm shift. Nature is reminding us that we are just another cog in the wheel of life and to be relevant and essential in the natural, we have to nurture and embrace every part of this planet, not live as if we were on the outside looking in. That said, the tenacity of the human spirit is something to behold. Against all odds we do indeed rise up. We adapt, we shift, we stride on. At Rotary Club of Madras, we are those leaders that shine a light through darkness. Like the Pole Star, in a manner of speaking. Our work toward service to community continues. Our camaraderie more buoyant than ever. Our bond stronger than before. It seems fitting, therefore, that ourst 1 Full Club Fellowship, during this strangest of years, should be unique and in many ways, a reinforcement of the ideal that we will endure together, through good and bad times. My remarkable team painstakingly put together a most elaborate and exquisite Fellowship programme; one that was diverse in content and impeccable in execution. To add to this vibrance, a most sumptuous meal was painstakingly curated, packed with strict hygiene processes and hand-delivered to our members at their homes. Creativity meets organisational genius, ably aided by the generosity of our members who gave us all the help and resources that we needed to make the day a joyful one. I am delighted to give you the special supplement of Lighthouse, celebrating the 1st Full Club Fellowship of 2020-21... The Freedom Fellowship. Jai Hind. FLAG HOISTING THE YELAI SAPAAD 1 renowned catering house. 8-course specially curated menu. 140 members. 420 boxes. 1 whole Club of happy, energised Rotarians! Special thanks goes to those who kindly helped with their vehicles and drivers for deliveries: Rtns. Aditya Agarwal, Anuradha Ganesan, Rohit Toshniwal, Nalini Radhakrishan, P N Mohan, Raj Sabanayagam, Rajesh Mani, Rajesh Somasundaram, Vikram Chesetty, Roopa Shetty & N. Prakash - thanks to them, we were able to complete the gigantic task of delivering yelai sapaad to every Rotarian who was part of our Fellowship, in time for us to share our goodies together when the event began... RTN. N. PRAKASH Creativity, organisation, logistics - at this 1st Full Club Fellowship of the Rotary Club of Madras, one can see a confluence of all these skills and the standards of these? Stellar! It infuses a burst of energy into everyone who’s part of the team, to be a part of what can even be called a Movement! Which is why, it’s fitting that we give thanks to everyone who helped make all of this happen and get all of us together on this lovely, lively afternoon. First thanks goes to all the Green Rotarian hosts who believed in the Fellowship Committee and their bold and extensive plan, which included a full-fledged “yelai sapaadu” home-delivered to our attending members! It took 5 sittings for the menu to be finalised and on the day of the event, the team was at the kitchens at 6.00am, to ensure all the packing and delivery arrangements were in order! The seemingly impossible task of home-delivering the meal boxes across the length and breadth of the city, within a 3-hour span, was swiftly handled thanks to the Rotarians who generously offered their vehicles and drivers to facilitate delivery. Dushyanth Guna, Rtn. Shaan Katari, Rtn. Mohan Raman and Anil Srinivasan, Rtn. Maya Thiagarajan and Rtn. Raghu Kailas made every minute of our afternoon sparkling, with their programmes, which included folk dances and children of LEAP Chennai performing wonderful music! Musical duo Sourendro and Soumyojit filled our ears with beautiful versions of our patriotic songs, all the way from Kolkata. Enjoy the programme! DUSHYANT GUNASHEKAR (SON OF RTN. S. GUNA & ANN. PADMAVATHY) Before the clock struck midnight, one could have caught PP Rtn. S. Guna at his home wielding a camera, playing cinematographer to his very creative and very accomplished son, Dushyant, the founder of the arts and theatre entity Crea-Shakthi. The production? The rendition of the first poem in the array of programmes lined up for our 1st Full Club Fellowship, the Freedom Fellowship. In his strident tones and perfect diction, Dushyant sets the tone for the rest of the afternoon with his rousing recital. Between him and Rtn. Guna, directorial angles were explored, lighting was set and when the midnight hour chimed, the dawn of a new, patriotic day was announced, as it was on August 15, 1947, ushering in an independent India. CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON TO VIEW THE VIDEO RTN. MOHAN RAMAN From cinema to politics to poetry to history, our Mohan Raman can hold forth with complete confidence and knowledge of the subject at hand. Add to that, the innate pride he feels in his Tamilnadu, her rich history and her fearless daughters and sons; and it was only fitting that for our Freedom Fellowship, he picked Mahakavi Subramania Bharathi as his muse and walked us through some of his most powerful works, explaining the emotion behind it as we went along... RTN. ANIL SRINIVASAN Anil Srinivasan’s superpower is not just in his fingers as he moves from key to piano key, but in the way he understands, breaks down and re-constitutes a musical piece as only he can. And when it came to collaborating with Mohan Raman, he was the perfect partner in literallyfeeling the words of the poetry that was being recited and recreating it in perfect flow - a mellifluous tribute to our Independence Day, indeed. THE POETRY OF SUBRAMANIA BHARATI CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON TO VIEW THE VIDEO FOLK DANCES OF INDIA We are all familiar with our country’s famous classical dances, but how many of us know the rich and varied forms of folk dances across India, each so different from the other as we cross tribes, districts and states? Dozens of vibrant, colourful dances that speak directly to the hearts of the people. Whether it’s Poi Kaal Kuthirai from Tamilnadu, or Fugdi from Goa, or Garba from Gujarat, or Lahu from Mizoram or Bhangra from Punjab - every state has its own flavour of dance, which is a physical expression of their culture, their lifestyles, their rituals and their personalities, even! Rtn. Maya Thiagarajan walks us through Dakshinchitra’s production of a few such folks dances. Enjoy the visual feast! RTN. SHAAN KATARI LIBBY No celebration of our Indian Independence Day is complete without a tribute to one of our greatest poets and freedom fighters - Rabindranath Tagore. Rtn. Shaan Libby’s clear and powerful rendition ofWhere The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore filled us with an expanding bubble of pride for our nation, with all her glories and all her dark patches. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. SOURENDRO AND SOUMYOJIT Sourendro Mullick and Soumyojit Das are better known as, simply, Sourendro-Soumyojit, a pianist-vocalist duo who consider themselves world citizens at heart. Soumyojit the vocalist has flair in the experimental music genre which ranges from renditions of short classical pieces, semi- classical pieces, ghazals, thumri, new compositions, popular songs and playback songs. He is trying to develop a new form of singing which incorporates the western values in traditional Indian techniques of voice preparation. Sourendro the pianist has a style of his own and uses the nuances of Indian classical music in the grammar of the instrument. What a vocalist uses her/ his voice for, Sourendro uses his piano to deliver, as he flows through all forms of music, an easy breeze from one note to the other. The duo composes, performs, interprets music they believe in, but they continue to keep the faith of their connoisseurs. They say that because they worship craft, they are better able to experiment with it and curate it in a myriad different ways for their projects. Sourendro-Soumyojit kindly accepted to grace the occasion of our Independence Day Fellowship and kept us enthralled with their musical performances of beautiful classical and fusion numbers from the era of our freedom struggle. CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON TO VIEW THE VIDEO RAGHUPATHY RAGHAVA RAJA RAM The “Ram dhun”Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram is the bhajan that Mahatma Gandhi took around the nation and the world. It is an excerpt fromSri Nama Ramayanam by Lakshmanacharya. The most popular version of this bhajan was set to tune by Hindustani classical musician, Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar and sung by Gandhiji and his followers as they walked the 241- mile Salt March to Dandi. SAARE JAHAN SE ACHCHA- BY MUHAMMAD IQBAL Saare Jahan Se Achcha, formally known asTaranah-e-Hindi meaning "Anthem of the People of Hindustan", is an Urdu- language patriotic song for children written by poet Muhammad Iqbal in the ghazal style of Urdu poetry. The poem was published in the weekly journalIttehad on 16 August 1904.