Speech by Sri Babu Rao Mandava

Telugu Uagadi Welcome

To all Telugu and Non-Telugu community members

Dear Friends and Hindu Samaj Trustees, officers, and Volunteers:

I want to thank our Telugu leaders for having me do this honor. It gives me great pleasure to welcome all Telugu speaking Brothers and Sisters and other people who are participating in this event including the Hindu Samaj Trustees and other volunteers, who are here today. I would like to welcome especially those who came from far away places. They give us a special sense of satisfaction of great returns on our efforts.

Several Volunteers worked hard with a lot of enthusiasm and poured in so much of their energies into organizing and making this event an enjoyable one to all. This brings the sweet memories of UGADI from back home:  Vepa Puvvu Pachadi, the environment of fun, joy, love and care, compassion and kindness to all people around - An opportunity to meet each other and enjoy each others company as well as the entertainment and food.

Let us get connected better by meeting like this more often and enjoy common things to make our lives brighter, expose our kids to our values, traditions, culture, and more than any thing else - get them to respect our roots.

We want to bring and promote harmony among several of our groups of Indians here in this Valley and help each other, care for each other, respect each other. We want to participate in Hindu Samaj, support and contribute our share of funds and volunteer services which are even a lot more important than the funds alone. To accomplish this we must stand up and be counted. We want to become members of the Hindu Samaj- the membership fee is tax deductible just as the donation.  I should thank those who observed that the Telugu community could be more active and effective. They requested us to do some thing about it. Last year in September we had a function with over 300 people and collected over 25 thousand dollars for the temple. I am glad that we are meeting like this and making our group more vibrant to meet the needs of the entire Indian community.

We want to participate in the upcoming KUMBHAABHISHEKAM ceremony that is by far the biggest event of all events thus far. People from hundreds and thousands of miles will watch us and may even come here to witness the holy event. We all want to take pride in it personally. Let us all do our best in making this event at the end of May the most successful one and also participate actively in making the Temple debt free. Lastly let us all wish and hope that our leaders who organized this event will keep up the good work and organize again next year and even better wit the help of more volunteers. Let us all continue supporting the work being done by the Temple Management and Hindu Samaj under the leadership of some special people like Khurana and Seth and many other able and respected volunteers. We are very proud of their superb achievements through dedication and wish them great success in their plans for the future of this divine facility and the needs of our great community of Indians of different origins and languages and cultures.

Please enjoy the rest of your time here today – great entertainment and delicious food. Once again thanks for giving me this opportunity.