SMJV Bhakti Mandal

Music is the most divine form of expressing our feelings about anybody, anything. And music is something which is loved by everyone, even God likes the Music – “The Sangeet”.  In our religion we have the very long history what we call it as Prachin Stavans.

At SMJV from around 2005 because of one enthusiast ‘Saurabh Sancheti’  the whole SMJV used to sing stavans, do chaamar dance, and used to participate in Bhavana on every Saturday in the Ghar Derasar like beautiful Room no. 21 Mandir.

Later on other guys like Sanket Shah (popularly known as Sanket Karad), Kaushik Jain took the chariot ahead, the unnamed group was formed. These guys had their patent songs like Aasra is jaha ka, Bhakti ki hai raat, Mithe Mahavir Elaan Kar raha hu, and many more. and by these they used to enthrall the public.

Days went and few more enthusiasts got added to the group, but the Bhavana was at SMJV level only. On one fine day our member Bhupen Sethiya saw the hoarding of stavan competition organized by JICO (Jain International Creative Organization). He told about the competition to the unelected president Saket Shah, “……..at any cost we have to win this competition, come what may……….”. The details were told to other members, all were like ok, lets do it. We took part and on the competition day no one in uniform (by these time there was no uniform) but also no white kurta or something, some members were in t-shirts. We performed, the audience was like “Once More…Once More…”, full of energy performance, because this was rather this is our default style what we have learnt from our seniors and our hostel. It was our first time, so after semi-finals we asked the judges about our performance and they said, ” performance was awesome, but when you are performing as a group you all need to have a dress code common for all and that too relevant for the event”. There was no uniform till now and nothing can be done in just one day, for final day we got kurtas on rent from the laundry shop, and went for performance, after the semifinal performance, everybody was expecting something great. . Now, We got selected in finals, With bit nervousness we took the stage and unfortunately it was already  10.00PM so the mics were to be switched off and we were to perform without mic. We were more tensed now, but then also we didn’t lose our hope, we called the audience to come closer and started our performance without mic. After the performance the public response only shown us that we are winner today, and finally we were declared winner. Everyone at SMJV were very happy. And the series of performance outside SMJV started. And something which is called as group, formed in real sense with name “SMJV- Bhakti Mandal”.

We have performed in Poynad, Malegaon, Baramati, Manchar, Karad, Kaamshet, Nandurbar, Shahapur and other more than 30 different places outside Pune and almost 100+ places in Pune. Because of the people everywhere we get a new energy every time. Everywhere we had a great experience which motivated us to improve ourselves and to perform in better manner. Every year from then we took part in competitions and every time we won.

Our seniors started with one Dholak and today we have plenty of instruments purchased with the prize money won from the stavan competition and also the members are learning music from the professionals.

There are plans to record an audio CD, so that other people in our absence also can enjoy the Bhakti Bhavana and get the inner peace.

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