Ujjain: The twenty-first Thahaka Sammelan was organised on the occasion of World Laughter Day on 11th January at Kalidas Academy. Veteran Bollywood comedian and character actor Asrani was conferred with the prestigious International Thahaka Award for his work and Collector Ashish Singh was awarded the Youth Icon award for the year.
Asrani lauded Ashish Singh for his contribution in making Indore the number one cleanest city and his constant efforts for the Ujjain city. Collector was also invited to the KBC show for the same. Police Superintendent Amrendra Singh was also awarded for his service for security amid the pandemic. Along with this, Dr HP Sonaniya and DR Mahavir Khandelwal were also awarded for their services as the covid warriors in the situation of crisis.
According to Dr Mahendra Yadav, the founder, and convenor of Thaka Sammelan, Higher Education Minister Mohan Yadav, MLA Tarana Mahesh Parmar, Manish Sharma, Yogesh Sharma, former MLA Rajendra Bharti, and others were present as the guests for the occasion. Ashok Bhati was bestowed with the Thahaka Kalidas Award, Namita Naman, Delhi was given the Thahaka Shakuntala Award. Whereas the Ujjain Ratna Award and the Ujjain Gaurav Samman was given to Narendra Singh Akela and Bharti Madhav respectively.
Asrani, in his well-known British jailor style narrated many famous dialogues of his films and cracked up the audience. The duo of Asrani and Dr. Mahendra Yadav had the audience in splits. The iconic, Johnny Bairagi, with his comical satires, forced the audience to wiggle and laugh. Comedy artist, Ankit Sisodia got the audience laughing with his mimicry of more than fifty Bollywood celebrities. Along with this, poets Dheeraj Sharma, Mandav, Kuldeep Rangeela, Dewas, Ashok Bhati and Narendra Singh Akhil of Ujjain, Sabia Asar, Bhopal, Namita Naman, Delhi, were also lauded by the public.
The programme was anchored by Dr Mahendra Yadav and Rashi Ramendra Mishra. The evening began with a musical performance by the Jwalant Sharma Group. The team led by sanrakshak Harisingh Yadav handled the entire arrangements of the event by following Corona's guideline, with sanitisers. The event was organised under the supervision of Manohar Parmar, Lalit Lulla, Vijay Tiwari, Ashish Khandelwal, Shubham Arora, Reetik Yadav, Surendra Darbar, Rohit Chauhan, Rahul Prajapati, Prabhat Sharma, Maqsood Pathan, and many more. Late poet Jagannath Vishwas of Nagda was supposed to be honoured by the Thahaka family this year whereas he was also supposed to receive the Rajinikanth of Malwa Award. However, due to his sudden demise a week ago, he was honoured with the award posthumously. His daughter Sandhya was overwhelmed with emotions while receiving the award on his behalf.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the audience was limited in the Kalidas Academy premises, but over 500,000 people across 29 nations watch the event which was streamed online. The event was also telecasted on the local channels.
It is a ritual of Thahaka Sammelan to feed donkey with a Gulab Jamun before the event starts. However, this year the animal departed, leaving the guests paying their respect to his picture.
Dr Shiv Sharma use to read his famous and hilarious Thahaka report every year. However, due to his sad demise last year, the organisers played a montage of videos, to the amusement of audience.
