Friends of MP NYNJ had its 5th Annual Picnic on Sat Sept 21 in Pennington, NJ. Around 300 members attended, hailing from 5 North East states in USA. And all these have roots in different cities and towns of Madhya Pradesh (MP).
It was excellent sunny weather, beautiful park sorrounding and participants of all age brackets had an amazing time. Highlight of MP are its food delicacies. The morning ‘Indore ka Sarafa’ was Pohe, Jalebi, Garadu ; followed by sumptuous tasty lunch of Puri, Shrikhand, Aamras. Lunch was served by volunteers of Friends of MP wearing the Malwi Pagdi. Midday was chilled Jaljeera, Guddi ke Baal, Baraf Gola.
In addition to the usual fun, activities and entertainment, these were some of the highlights of the Picnic this year.
# To preserve the environment, FMP Ladies team made Table Covers of reusable cloth (which used of plastic earlier ). There was a game for kids called ‘Best out of Waste’ to make things of value/decoration. Gift tokens to Elder citizens were plants.
# To promote knowledge of MP , there was a scavenger hunt made about Narmada river. The teams were named after famous Ladies from MP :Sumitra, Ahilya, Lata, Sushma, Aryama, Manikarnika .
# The whole Photo area was made by the theme of a Village (Gaanv) complete with Charpai, Hukka, Well, and other Props, which was very popular for attendees.
# Even the Housie/Tambola game was made around famous spots in MP.
# In addition, there were many games and creativity activities for toddlers, young kids, teenagers and Adults.
# Above all, the underlying theme of any Picnic of Friends of MP is the ‘personal connect’ of participants. People got to meet their old school buddies, found common bonds by chance. The entire day was focused in enabling maximum personal interaction. To facilitate, many of the first- time attendees shared their short Introductory Video Clips which made ‘breaking the ice’ much easier. There was a large number of families who attended the Picnic for the first time.
# Team of Volunteers lead by families of Jitendra Muchhal, Raj Bansal, Rajesh Mittal, Pankaj Gupta, Sandeep Jain, Anupam Sarwaikar, Anjani Mittal had been working for last many months to bring this Picnic alive. There were many who got chance to attend picnic after 2 years wait, as it becomes houseful every year soon. www.friendsofMPNYNJ.com
