Celebrating IndependenceEvent by Pixie & Pexels andThe Metanoiah NGO

Tired but with satisfaction in their heart. This is how our audience, participants and team went back home on 15th August 2021 after the 6 & half hour long program (9 hours for the team) hosted by Pixie and Pexels publication house and The Metanoiah NGO.
The event was hosted by Khushi Sharma, the founder of Pixie & Pexels publication, along with Pari Kankaria, the event manager at Pixie & Pexels.Team Sachi Organdonation ( a vertical of Young Volunteers Organisation) joined in as special guests in the event to make this Independence Day worth it. They had an interactive session on the importance of organdonation and told the participants and audience about the most special gift anyone could gift to someone, I.e the gift of a happy life.
Contact info -Instagram – @sachi_organdonationEmail – sachi.yvo@gmail.com
A month and ten days ago….“Yayyy ! We have got 50 responses.”
Little did the Pixie and Pexels and The Metanoiah team know that we will end up with a staggering 150+ responses.About 25 days before the program, began the arduous process of mailing, calling and informing all the participants. The team spent more than 6 hours collectively on calling the auditionees, clearing their doubts and scheduling their audition dates. Our teammates were a great help in this.Then came the long awaited auditions day, a nerve racking day for the auditionees as well as the team and judges. These were the days we would get to know the future participants of the program. And in raw honesty, we were all expecting a certain level of talent, and anyone would after so many hours of planning, promoting and executing. On those days, Aashi Toor, the founder of The Metanoiah and Project Lead Manager ofPixie and Pexels, was one of the few people who were still calm and could calm down the other frantic members.The auditions blew the judges and team members off. The four days of auditions were a blast. The enthusiasm of the auditionees fueled the sleep deprived founder Khushi Sharma and team members more than coffee ever could. The singing, dancing, art and literary categories had participants who left us in shock. The auditions were an eye opener. We came to know the immense talent the people possessed. From kids as young as 8 to people as old as 40, we saw them all.After four long days of audition, we sadly came to the elimination part of the event. The auditionees were so great that it was harder to choose the people to eliminate than it was to pay attention in online classes. But sadly, it had to be done.
We had thought that the harder part of the event was done, but boy were we wrong. Because now began the real work.
“Where is the brochure ?”“Make the final list of participants with their details.”“Mail me the order in which the participants will perform.” “Khushi Sharma I don’t have a green dress!”“Pari, go find an orange dress. We will wear orange on 15th.” “Snehal work on the video and Priyanshi finalize the activities.”
And amidst these all, the supporters of team Urooj (The managing director of Pixie and Pexels and CEO of The Metanoiah) were like, “WiLl UrOoJ AtTeNd ThE pRoGrAm ?”
Till the last minute, the team was still preparing. Two hours before the program, our team member Rovin thankfully gave us the transcript he had made for a person who would be performing in his mother tongue. The script which could not be done in a meeting that lasted till 1 a.m. in the night, Khushi with Aashi’s help, finished it in an hour on the day of the program.After some technical difficulties, the program had finally begun. Anmol had also begun streaming it live on Youtube. The opening ceremony finished and the participants started performing. With bright costumes, beautiful background decorations, sweet voices, intellectual literary performances and brilliant pieces of art, the participants had our heart. And the hosts, Pari Kankaria and Khushi Sharma certainly enjoyed the background commentary being done by our backstage helpers Snehal, Amaan, Tanya, Priyanshi, Archita, Gurdeep, Yukti, Rovin, Nabiha, Shubhangini, Gauri, Shrushti, Zohra & all the team members.
Thanks to Snehal, even though the video of The Metanoiah could not be played, we still had her, live with us, informing us about the purpose, aim and works of the NGO. A great speech on mental health by Anmol, a heartwarming presentation by Pari on Pixe and Pexels and the 75th Independence Day resolution, and tens of great performances later, Dwiti ma’am from Sachi organ donation wing of Youth Volunteer Organization conducted a very informative session on organ donation.
After 6 beautiful hours of performance and activities later, we finally had to announce the results. For us, every participant was the winner because everyone’s performance was top notch, but the people who ranked were as follows:
Art Category1st position holders:Gulbahar Anushri Gupta2nd position holder:Sree Durga Naharasetti3rd position holder:Fathima HanfaSpecial mention:Sakshi Mishra
Poetry/Speech Category1st position holders:Gatha Modi Raj Kumar2nd position holder:Divyataa Banerjee Isha Tripathi3rd position holder:Ishika SaxenaSpecial mentions:Parkhi Sinha Likhith
Music Category1st position holders:Shishira Srinivasa2nd position holders:Steffi Kocheri Varun Dubey3rd position holders:Aliza KhanCH. NVS SowmyaSpecial mentions:Toshanjit Das Trishanjit Das Anushri Gupta
Category dance1st position holder:Monalisha Basistha2nd position holder:Sayoni Bhattacharya3rd position holders:Shlok Khandal Abhinav Joshi
The results, congratulations, some chit chat and a lot of pictures later, the event finally came to an end. Too tired for even the after party, the team slept with a big smile on their faces. The Celebrating Independence event was a huge success.
You can visit our YouTube channel for the replayhttps://youtube.com/channel/UCE–4rU4CMTOd2mQ jE-jfPw
A huge thanks to participants and the audience who made it possible.
A round of appreciation for the team, and especially our backstage workers.   Signing Off