International Institute of Solutions, USA, launches India chapter, honours film personalities

Led by Arun Gandhi, International Institute of Solutions (IIS), USA, has now come to India, to source organic and health food supplies, supplements and nutritional products, among many other projects. To mark the occasion, a dinner reception was held at the Classique Club, Link Road, Andheri, Mumbai. A host of personalities were honoured on the occasion, with singer Padma Shri (civilian honour) Soma Ghosh, Special Invitee, doing the honours on stage, with Arun Gandhi. Many of them were doctors. Gandhi’s wife Kalpana joined those on the stage later.

A large number of film personalities graced the occasion, impressed by the IIS motto, ‘Growth Not Greed’, blessed IIS’s initiatives and offered to help in their entrepreneurship. Soma Ghosh is a renowned singer, a disciple of late Ustad Bismillah Khan, and wife of Shubhankar Ghosh, a film and TV director. Shubhankar, in turn, is the son of veteran screenplay writer and film director, Nabendu Ghosh. Normally a low key person, he was present, nevertheless. Soma made an impassioned plea for the preservation of Indian culture and Indian musical instruments, a refrain that was often heard from late music director, Naushad. She felt that instruments like the veena, surbahar and taar shehnai will be obsolete and will disappear very soon unless measure are taken to promote their use. She urged IIS to take some initiative in this direction. In this context, she cited the music of the films Mughal-e-Azam and Kohinoor, both which had a whole range of Indian instruments used in their scores. Incidentally, the music score for both these films was composed by Naushad.

Soma Ghosh and Arun Gandhi

Other film personalities who were called on stage and presented mementoes were Tarun Khanna (actor), Bobbie Vats (actor), Katarina Grabowska (actress and entrepreneur), Karan Anand (actor), Mini Bansal (actress), Arvinder Singh (singer; a teetotaller who sings many a song about wine and intoxication), Sunil Pal (comedian, actor). Pal entertained the audience with a few jokes, one about Keralite nurses, several about doctors, some about Covid masks, and one at the expense of Mini Bansal. He said that her dreams of making it big will never become Maxi so long as she calls herself Mini. Mini responded with “My name is Mini, but I pack an explosion.”

Also felicitated were Jainendra Baxi (film-maker, writer and social activist), S.M.M. Ausaja (author, film archivist and film historian), Dilip Sen (music composer), Anupam Shukla (actor), Amitabh Sinha (director and film-maker) and Pihu Chauhan (actress).

Arun Gandhi believes in the power of innovation, utilization and creative giving. To quote him, “The day we begin to focus on our moral obligations, our own strength, positivity and solutions, it will make more progress and bring more prosperity in one decade than in all the previous centuries of our existence.”

Ramakant Munde, Dr. Kushwaha, Dilip Sen, Arun Gandhi and Daljeet Kaur

The proceedings were ably conducted by Daljeet (or Diljeet) Kaur, who was comfortable in both English and Hindustani. Part of the proceedings were conducted by IIS India Co-ordinator Dr. Vijay Pratap Kushwaha. Media relations were entrusted to Ramakant Munde, Media and PR director, who looked after media-persons well and co-ordinated the event ably.