Blind Orchestra

Service to Humanity

LODGE FELLOWSHIP PRESENTS THE FIRST EVER BLIND ORCHESTRA

Lodge Fellowship No. 140, Ahmedabad, sponsored the first ever-public performance of a completely blind orchestra.

The show titled “SURDHARA”, organized on 13 th May 2003 at the local Town Hall with a seating capacity of nearly 1000 was jam-packed with all tickets sold out and the audience eager to witness a rare occasion – a song and music evening performed exclusively by the visually impaired students of the local Blind Peoples Association.

The show when it started saw the audience completely dumbstruck as it was a totally professionally organized show and the most unbelievable aspect was that every artiste could not only sing but could play practically each and every instrument ranging from the Tabla to the Electric Drums & the Synthesizer.

Lodge Fellowship had invited leading singers like Bankim Pathak & Daksha Gohil to boost the morale of the visually impaired artistes and as the musical evening progressed, these professionals could not hold themselves back and desired to sing with the visually impaired and their orchestra. The pride of the visually impaired artistes could be seen in their smiles. The music function, which was organized for 2 hrs. continued for over 4 hrs. with the audience reluctant to leave the auditorium.

Lodge Fellowship which has been doing yeoman’s service for the visually impaired for over 2 years now wanted to showcase to the world the talent within the visually impaired which goes unnoticed. The success of this show can be gauged by the fact that one of the visually impaired artistes Jayesh Solanki was noticed by “Spandan” and was selected to perform at the International Folk Festival being held in Ukraine from 12 th July.

The brethren of Lodge Fellowship had achieved their desire to bring into limelight these visually impaired who have more talent in them than their normal counterparts. Since Jayesh could not afford his trip to Ukraine the brethren of Lodge Fellowship unanimously came forward and sponsored his trip to Ukraine .

Through this publication Lodge Fellowship, Ahmedabad would like to bring to the notice of the brethren across the country that this orchestra of the visually impaired is available for performance anywhere. It only requires people with compassion to sponsor them. They are in no way inferior to any professional group.

We, the brethren of Lodge Fellowship would also like to take this opportunity to profusely thank R.W. The R.G.M., R.W. Bro. Govind Lal Shahu who during his last visit to Ahmedabad along with M.W. The Grand Master, M.W. Bro. Dilip D. Udeshi had sanctioned part of the funds from the Regional Grand Lodge of W.I. to enable us to organize “SURDHARA” which resulted in one of the visually impaired artistes to present his talents to a global society in Ukraine .