In a world that is turning materialistic and making our lives filtered for a social media image, it is rare when someone thinks out of the box and lends their hand for help. In an age when we are accustomed to celebrations that call for parties and often lavish splurging to mark personal milestones, it is rare to witness someone like Mrs. Annanya Roy Chowdhury & Subir Roy Chowdhury, who had a rather unique way of celebrating their marriage anniversary.
This power couple , who would be completing their 30th marriage anniversary in the coming year, wanted to change the prevalent norms and be the torch-bearers of change. And what better way than to include someone else’s happiness as your own, especially in the lives of orphaned kids, who have lived marginalised lives over the years.
On 21st May, 2022, on the occassion of their wedding anniversary, both Mr and Mrs Roy Chowdhury had organised a programme at Rabindra Okkakura Bhavan, Salt Lake DD Block, especially for the orphan kids of Aashiyana Trust, to provide them with a platform to showcase their talents as well as to spread joy among them. Mrs. Annanya Roy Chowdhury, who happens to be the proprietor of a montessory school in Dumdum, named Milestone Montessory House, is also the Chief Secretary of Human Rights and Social Justice Mission. Her husband and partner, Mr. Subir Roy Chowdhury, being a businessman by profession also happens to be the State Director of Human Rights and Social Justice Mission. Together, they ventured to start this notable initiative of doing something good for the larger good of humanity.
The programme comprised several interesting events, where 185 children from Aashiyana Trust, aged between 5-17 years participated in a Broadway Inspired Musical, named Ishq-e-Kolkata. All the participants were trained under the guidance and supervision of Mr. Shivaji Dutta, who was specially hired for the programme, personally had gone to the Centre for several weeks to train the kids in the performance art. The Aashiyana Trust is a home for orphan children and located in a remote town, near Madhyamgram, West Bengal and live a life that most of us, who are privileged , can hardly immagine. The joy that it brought to these kids on being able to partake in the programme was unparallel.
The Musical was followed by the feliciation of the Chief Guest, Nigel Akkara, who is a prominent film star and social activist, along with the Special Guest, Manisha Basu who is a notable choreographer. Then came the time for shocasing a juggling show that was performed and directed by Laxmi Narayan Das and brought wonder and sparkle in everyone’s eyes.
What was the highlight of the show that grabbed the attention of one and all was the much awaited magical show performed by none other than Magician A Sarkar. It goes without saying that the kids were most excited about this show and had in fact opted for this in favour of a puppet show. It was much expected as the kids who live a rather mundane life, wait for a moment when their reality could magically transform. And hence this initiative was taken by Mr and Mrs Chowdhury to ignite a ray of hope with magic shows. The first magic show that was performed by Mr. A Sarkar was called Boy on the Sword, where a kid from the audience was made to float on three swords before removing it, that created an illusion of making the boy remain in suspension, almost in defiance of gravity. The next and one of the most hyped magical event was The Great Illusion Box where magician A Sarkar was first tied with handcuffs and put in a sack, before locking him a box, fully chained with locks and keys. The audience could literally see him struggling in the box but within the count of 15 seconds, much to the amazement of the entire audience, Mr. Sarkar could be seen entering the auditorium riding in a bike, amidst loud cheers from the audience. This magic also known as The Great Escape Act created a jaw dropping session as they couldn’t figure how a man right before their eyes tied by one of the members themselves, could elude them and reappear among the audience. It surely left the entire audience, specially the kids confused and surprised.
This is not where it ended. Mr. Sarkar had also performed several other small magic tricks for the kids using rabbits, pigeons and even with the Indian National Flag. But the show would be incomplete without him performing a magic trick or two with the chief host. Hence, Mr. Sarkar performed a unique magic trick with Mrs. Roy Chowdhury named Nine Box Ring Vanish. In this trick, Mr. Sarkar before the entire audience made Mrs. Annanya Roy Chowdhury’s precious gold ring disapper from her finger and made it reappear in the last of the 9 boxes held by one of the audience members.
Overall, the show and the programme was a huge success that won the hearts of the kids and made their day. Seeing their happy gleeful faces, made the hourable effort by Mr and Mrs Roy Chowdhury worth it. The entire programme which had commenced from 5.30 p.m lasted till 9 p.m and made a crowd of 250 guests, including the kids applaud and cheer in sheer joy.
At the end of the programme, special awards were given to the kids in honour of Mrs. Ananya Chowdhury’s late father-in-law. Apart from that, mention must also be made of another noble stance taken by Mr and Mrs. Roy Chowdhury, where everyone present in the programme was gifted with a plant sapling as a go-green take, for the occasion of World Environment Day, in advance. Mention must also be made of their son, Sayan Roy Chowdhury, who had made a website launch for Aashiyana Trust as a token of appreciation and to make their platform accessible to a global audience.
The Website was created by Sayan Roy Chowdhury himself and given to the Trust, completely free of cost, taking into consideration that a large section of our society is unaware of the organisation’s struggle to make ends meet for the kids of the orphanage.
For those who are interested to learn magic or book magic shows for private shows from Magician A Sarkar, you can contact @9836041952/ 9239020868.
