A Night that dreamt, ‘beti’…
Long ignored the Silent Scream…
Long you killed the Nature’s Dream…
Hail now the birth of ‘beti’…
Hail the night that dreamt ‘beti’…!
It was a night that held you in a trance, a night that tugged at your heartstrings, a night that compelled you to think – it was the night of, ‘beti’!
A mission of Anu Ranjan’s (President, The ITA and Editor, GR8!), ‘beti’ is a movement against Female Foeticide, which is rampant all across the country, today. So much so, that it is playing havoc with the gender balance as created by Mother Nature.
Besides that, ‘beti’ also touches a longer spectrum of travails undergone by girls in particular and children at large – for instance, the scourge of child mutilation, of whose examples we see day-in and day-out at our road crossings in the form of those urchins and beggars and on whose sight we just turn and look away.
To create awareness about all of these curses, this evening was organized in the form of a celebrity Ramp-walk, all of whom professed their unqualified support to the movement and were vociferously vocal against Female Foeticide and other such banes besetting the children in our society.
And there were celebrities galore at the occasion – all those A-listers from Films, Television and Corporate sectors walked the ramp and were cheered lustily by their peers in the audience.
Before that, Anu Ranjan took to the mike and spoke about ‘beti’ the movement. She also dwelt upon the inclusion of child mutilation in the movement, making no bones about the fact that it was those heart-rending scenes in ‘Slumdog Millionnaire’ that impelled her towards this scourge!
Laying out a chart of things to come, she declared the plans for a Women’s Marathon and a Live Concert of the Entertainment Industry, all in aid of ‘beti’.
Claps resounded from all across as she finished with these declarations!
The evening also had the ebullient Divya Dutta reading a poem by her mother on Female Foeticide. It talked of a girl in the womb talking to her mother and then suddenly being forked out of it as a lump of flesh.
It cast a spell on the audience and there were many eyes in which mists of anguish were curling up!
Such was the punch of Divya’s recital!
And then the Ramp…
One after another pair of celebrities sizzled the air while walking with an attitude and style that attracted instant attraction! Indeed, what a Mela of Aces it was proving to be. Every time an entry was made, there were gasps and wows from all across.
The first to walk was the famed vocalist Roop Kumar Rathod who strolled on with Swini Khara to the boomy beats of Maula Mere Maula...!
And then, it was kind of a barrage of the bigwigs striding across the ramp and though each of them was cheered boisterously by the audience, a few drew delirious clamour like Satish Kaushik, Om & Nandita Puri, Varun & Rajeshwari Badola and so on!
Percept honcho Harinder Singh, too, was singled out for special cheers.
But the moment became actually thunderous, when Shashi Ranjan (Publisher, GR8! and convenor, ITA) strode in with his two daughters – the very svelte Anushka and the very feisty Akanksha!
There was also Dheeraj Kumar with his cast of ‘Betiyaan’ and so were the girls from Bandini. Ashwaini Yardi (Programming Head Colors), sauntered in with Avika (Balika Vadhu) and Saloni (Chhote Miyaan)!
Finally, they all huddled together on the stage to the hypnotic strains of Michael Jackson’s ‘We Are The World’…!
By and by, what started as a simple event grew more and more spectacular by the minute because of the presence of all those mega people.
Hereby, we present to you the vignettes from this wonder blend of the sublime and the sizzling… rove your eyes around…
Happy ogling…!
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