Isha at Utsav 2007 !!

Here is another Isha NJ news update !!

This time , we were at the Utsav 2007 representing Isha. Utsav was a South Asian multi-cultural event that was celebrated at the Garden State Exhibit Centre on Sat Apr 7th and Sunday Apr 8th.

There was a lot of publicity for this event, with frequent ads on EBC radio, ITV , ZeeTV and RBC radio NY. The stalls took up approximately half of the 70,000 sqft of space, and Isha got two adjacent stalls (each 10x10) , and we set up a nice display as you can see below

That's Ranga who came to help out on Saturday. When I had to leave unexpectedly due to a personal emergency, Ranga stayed on and managed the stall all by himself. Hats off to him !!

There were quite a few volunteers who showed up on Sunday. Nopur and Samyu were the first ones to get there, and within minutes of arriving , Samyu managed to get into the festive mood and blend in with the colors of Utsav within minutes of her getting to the fair! She was a great help and did a very nice job of welcoming and engaging prospective Isha meditators. Jayanthi and Giri showed up and were a great help as well . We distributed quite a few brochures as well as gave away intro CDs to many of the stall visitors.

Here are some of the Isha volunteers at the stall.

We had quite a few interested visitors to our stall, of which we hope a majority will make it to the Somerset program. Here is a picture of a volunteer in conversation with an interested visitor to our stall.


We also had a talent and variety show being performed on the stage, and it kept the visitors entertained. The shows were compered by Radio show hosts from RBC radio and EBC radio.

On the whole, there was quite a good volume of traffic that flowed through the event. We were situated in a very good part of the hall, and so we did get a very good percentage of eyeballs. The curious and the serious did stop at our stall, and we were kept busy

Another small but successful step towards increasing "Isha awareness" in the tri-state area !!

Isha Stall at the Heritage Fair, Somerset NJ - Sunday April 1, 2007

The Heritage Fair took place at the Ukranian center in Somerset NJ on Apr 1, 2007. New Jersey volunteers decided to put up a stall to primarily promote awareness about the Isha foundation and about the programs that we conduct in the NY/NJ area.


The fair was scheduled to start from 11am and go on till about 7pm. The fair included exhibits, and cultural events from 4pm - 7pm.

Rakesh and I reached the location by around 10 am and we started the setup of our stall .

We had a little bit of trouble putting up the banner and propping up the display boards ( we ran short of easels !!) , but we soon resolved those and a few other minor issues as well.

We were ready and set by 11.00 am, but there were no visitors till about 2.00 pm.

There as you can see, we have the stall all set up and ready to go.

I also had my laptop with me , with internet access - just in case somebody wanted to register online.

After taking turns to have a quick lunch at the food stalls outside the main hall , we played the Sounds of Isha CD and the Green hands CD.

Also, I must make a quick mention about a couple of display boards that we used at the exhibit.These posters came from India, and we got the posters printed out at Staples, the night before. They give a very good idea as to what social programs are being undertaken by Isha.

These are the boards that you see on the left.

While both the posters are about ARR (Action for Rural Rejuvenation), the posters explain with telling photographs, the works undertaken by the Isha foundations.

If you need more information on this program you can visit the website at http://www.ruralrejuvenation.org/.

Till about 2pm, we had a chance to meet the other vendors and it was quite interesting to see the mix of stalls.

There were garment vendors, not for profit organizations (CRY, Art of living etc). There were art and craft shops, flower arrangements, bridal and interior decorators and also other service organizations like western unions, insurance agencies , real estate brokers and so on.

There was a stage at the far end of the hall, where dance performances and other talents shows were to be conducted.

A snapshot of the hall as viewed from our stall. The stage is at the far end of the photograph.


Around 2pm, people started arriving, and the flow of people coming in started to increase, and by now we were all geared and ready. By now we had also made the rounds and announced our presence to the vendors as well.

Almost all of the Isha merchandise was on display at the fair - books, tapes, CDs, Videos, Isha Craft items, and T-Shirts.

Here on the left is a display of some of the merchandise we had at the stall.

We also had intro CDs ready to give out, and had customized labels (with Somerset program info).

Customized inserts along with Inner Engineering brochures were also kept ready for easy distribution.

We came across a variety of people at the fair, and some of them were very interested, other curious, and some others just looking for information. We were able to successfully cater to all these groups.



Ranga joined us for about two hours and was a great help. We came across a couple of Isha meditators at the stall.

A couple of other volunteers, Bhuvana and the little volunteer, Sanjana came and stayed on for the last two hours of the show.

Sanjana helped by standing at the doorway and handing out brochures to people as they left the event towards the end.


To sum up the event allowed us to introduce Isha to over two hundred people. Of these there were some people who were very interested, and a larger percentage that were moderately interested.

Our goal with this event was to make Isha Foundations more known in the area, and to make people aware of both the spiritual as well as social programs that the Isha foundation spearheads. I believe that we have succeeded on both counts.

How this translates into getting more people to do the Inner Engineering program remains to be seen.

QS