New Delhi, 7^th January: The language of the community becomes the tool for transmitting culture from one generation to another. History is witness that when a language is lost, culture and heritage are also largely lost. When a culture loses its vehicle of language, the younger and newer generation will fail to experience and express their culture threatening the collective existence of community. The challenge of Koshur (Kashmiri) community in particular is that, we are facing a race against time with each day the number of kasmiri speaking population diminishing threatening it to be pushed on the path of near extinction. What else can one expect under these palpable moments, when you enter the auditorium to hear the koshur chants and experience the magnanimity of our culture being performed and demonstrated by our little angles, the harbingers of the community. Gaashtarukh was exactly an event that precisely addressed this challenge of preserving our culture and leveraging koshur language by meticulously integrating the both for a long term synergistic effect.

Keeping up with the earlier tradition, Jammu Kashmir Vichar Manch organised Finial Competition of Gaashtaruk-VI this year too on 7^th January at Satya Sai Auditorium New Delhi.

Gaastaarukh is a talent hunt programme of displaced Kashmiri Hindu community kids in domains like singing, dancing, instrumental and Kashmiri speaking. The idea is to help our kids carry forward our language and culture.

This was the 6th Edition of ‘GaashTarukh’. The selection once again was the result of over three months long search and exposure of talent within the community. Auditions were held at three cities Delhi NCR, Jammu and Dehradoon. A group of 94 young boys and girls was shortlisted out of 178 children who had participated in auditions in various domains. Among 94 kids 35 kids were selected for finals which was held on 7th of January 2018 at Satya Sai Auditorium, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. The finalist was judged by a panel of leading Kashmiri Artists Shri. Rajinder Kachroo who is a renowned singer, Shri. Dileep Langoo great Musician and Singer and for dancing judgment Mr. Anesh Koul and Mr. Raman from Dance India Foundation were present. While speaking at the occasion they congratulated JKVM for organizing Gaashtarukh and urged young contestants to peruse this art in a consistent manner.

Smt. Priya Sethi, Hon’ble Minister of State for Education, Technical Education, Culture, Tourism, Department of Horticulture, Floriculture and Parks, Government of Jammu & Kashmir graced the occasion as a chief guest. She encouraged the team JKVM and praised them for their efforts to carry forward the legacy of Kashmiri culture and language. She gave away the awards to the winners of Gaashtarukh-VI.

Shri. Sanjay Ganjoo, President JKVM presented welcome address and said that JKVM has relentlessly worked on preservation of culture and language and will continue to do so in future as well.

Sh. Manoj Bhan, General Secretary JKVM introduced the Judges and also shared the details of programme. He also threw light on how the event Gaashtarukh was conceived and the various stages it went through in its growth path.

During the entire event, Small groups of KP children of all ages, were seen enthusiastically performing to the best of their talent and demonstrating their koshur cultural aspirations that would have enthused and encouraged many parents and children in the audience to emulate. It created a galvanizing environment and held the audience spell bound by the wonderful performances of these budding artists

The excitement of kps was visible in the audience , each time a , punch line in koshur was recited by any performer, the audience would respond with huge applause, rekindling the fire inside each one of us and reminding that this can be our converging element for a stronger community response to other issues as well

Each performance of our little ones re-energized every member among the audience reminding us that, need to stay connected with our roots is the top most priority and goal for community. Every time a kp child artist came for a performance, their introductions in koshur, was making each one in audience feel strongly connected with each other

Despite program continuing for 5 hours, we couldn’t see a moment when the excitement, enthusiasm dropped for even a second indicating the inherent longing for togetherness. We am sure this event not only reinforced need of strengthening Koshur culture and language amongst the audience but also made performers feel proud of what they were doing and made them the undeclared torch bearers of KP Samaj's culture, heritage and language.

The event has undoubtedly left many with a thought that there is a greater need to do much more in and for this area that can facilitate prevent the emerging dangers leading to the extinction of our Culture, Heritage and Language, that is even bigger demon than the terrorism and other exile effects.

Details of winners are below:

Singing winners Seniors:   (13 yrs to 18 years)

Gashtarukh Singing Winner Senior...... Simran Kaul (15 yrs from Ghaziabad)

1st Runner up.......................................Vitasta Tiku (15 yrs old from Dwarka Delhi)

2nd Runner up......................................Radhika Koul (16 yrs old from Delhi)

Instrumental Junior (6yrs to 13 yrs.)

Gaashtarukh Winner............................Ritvik Kaul (12 yrs old from Ghaziabad)

Ist runner up.........................................Anish Raina (11 yrs old from Jain Nagar Delhi)

Instrumental winners Seniors:  (13 yrs to 18 years)

Gaashtarukh Winner.............................Arshia Razdan (13 yrs old from Ghaziabad)

Ist runner up..........................................Vinayak Raina (14 yrs old from Noida)

Dancing Junior Category. (6yrs to 12 yrs.)