In 1980, there were about 150 Marathi speaking families in Southern California. Today there are over 700 families in a three thousand square mile area in and around Los Angeles. In the last 25 years several Marathi artists, playwrights, poets, actors, musicians visited us to enrich our culture.  Pu. La. Deshpande, Sudhir Phadke, Hridayanath Mangeshkar, Prabha Atre, Manik Varma, Mangesh Padgaokar, Vasant Bapat, Babasaheb Purandare, Suresh Wadkar, Ashwini Bhave, Arun Date are few of the names that come to mind. Couple of years ago at the Ganapati festival we had an attendance of over 1200 people. Lately, the attendance has been dropping and the interest in the cultural activity seems to dwindling aseptically when it comes to yearly big events like Ganapati.

Speaking of big events, several big events took place in the last two decades.

              Marathi film festival was organized in 1982 through out the US to celebrate 50 golden years of Marathi films. We were one of the 8 centers, along with New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Detroit and Houston, to join in the festival. I was the coordinator of that event. That probably was the first big Marathi event to take place here in Southern California. Seven selected Marathi movies were screened on two-week ends. About 15 well known artists from the Marathi film industry including Sudhir Phadke, Lalita Pawar, Raja Gosavi, Jabbar Patel, (Amol   Palekar), Sharad Pilagaokar, Asha Kale, Kamalakar Torane were here for the festival. Some of them stayed with us for as long as two weeks. The movies were well attended. Among all the centers we were the highest money earners for our size.

             Vijay Tendulkar’s controversial but creative  “Ghashiram Kotwal”  toured the US in 1986. Shriniwas Mate coordinated that event. There were over 30 participants including Jabbar Patel, Mohan Agashe, Anand Modak, Ravendra Sathe, Chandrakant Kale and others. They spent a week with us. The play was excellent. Although there were controversies and difference of opinion the troupe liked their stay in L A than in any other place.

              Sunil Narkar, a young Marathi individual came from India in 1990 like a storm, whose main motive was to promote Marathi language in Los Angeles. He realized that the new generation is reluctant to speak Marathi so he directed  his first play “ Bandu Vashila Lavto” here with 12 Marathi college kids. Performance was so good that the second show was done in San Francisco. Then every year he started presenting at least two quality plays. To least few of them were “Viththal to Ala Ala”, Aaytya Bilavar Nagoba”, “Bandu Natak Karto”, “Tarun Turk Mhatare Ark”, Avaghi Dumdamali”, " Saadi Udali Aakashi", “Eka Ravivarshi Kahani”,” Chuk Bhool Dyaavi Ghyavi”. Youngsters who acted in all these plays, their parents were so happy to see their kids speaking some Marathi at home now. Then we came together many times to host such big events as the 5^th Brihan Maharashtra Mandal (BMM) convention (1991), a fund raiser for Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan (1993), a fund raiser for Maharashtra Foundation (1994) and a fund raiser for Maharashtra Mandal Building Committee (1996).

            Our BMM convention headed by Dr. Vishwnath Date was undoubtedly the best one. The convention was   acclaimed by the press her and in India. We set a standard by which the conventions started getting measured. I often find Marathi people in other part of the US still talking about it. The venue, the food management, the hotel accommodation and the cultural events were all talk of the Marathi community in the nation. The Jagatik Marathi Parishad invited our cultural program “Ashee Paakhare Yeti” to their convention in New Delhi in 1992. We had to decline the invitation because of the shear size of the program and also because too little time was given to us for planning the trip to India. We still have a standing invitation from a professional promoter to do 9 shows in Maharashtra. While others were praising our convention, it did more bad than good to the local community. It created rifts and pisions from which we still have not recovered.

           The fund raising for Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan coordinated by Vasant Dandekar during the then tense atmosphere brought over $30 thousand in ticket sales and pledges. “Geet Ramayan”  was presented by Sudhir Phadke during that time. We had the highest funds raised among the funds raised by any group outside India.   Before that program the possibility of raising such large sum of money among the Marathi community was unheard of.

          Another such fundraiser was organized for the benefit of Maharashtra Foundation.  The program coordinated by   Ashok and Vidya Sapre and directed by Jagdish Mulay and me included over 60 children in the program. That   program also raised  $30 thousand in ticket sales and pledges. That program was also designed to bring the   community together.

            Most of us remember the fund-raining program we did for Maharashtra Mandal Building Committee where we got   almost $100, 000 in pledges. The program coordinated by me included more than 110 children of all ages and all   from parts of Southern California. This was again an attempt to bring the community together while benefiting from   the funds raised for a cause.

          Though these programs and such other cultural activities have no immediate measurable effect on our next   generation their long-term effect can be seen and felt among the kids growing up today.

          Now another big event is taking place in LA. Natak.com, L A Dramatics is a separate organization is being formed by Sunil Narkar to promote drama and related activity.  L A Dramatics is giving you all a promise to present all great shows.  L A Dramatics is formed to promote and stage Indian culture activities in the Southern California. Our first Premier among the activities is plays in any of the Indian languages and variety entertainment.  L A Dramatics has been formed to perform and maintain Indian culture activity in the community.

                L A Dramatics kicked - off its opening event with a Marathi Drama Festival, where four well-known veteran artists from India on June 13th and 14th 1998 staged dramas. Over 400 people attended this two-day event. The second event “Chehare Aani Mukhavate” by Dilip Prabhavalkar was presented on July 24th, 1998."Aawaz Ki Duniya" exploded on November 21, 1998. On Sunday, December 06, 1998, a Marathi Musical Play from India “ Chandrika Hi Janu” by Dr. Kshama Vaidya. "Maa Retire Hoti Hai" Hindi play with Jaya Bachchan and Ramesh Talwar, performed in Phoenix on Saturday May 22, 1999 and again by public demand "Aawaz Ki Duniya" was staged back in Los Angeles on July 10, 1999 and San Francisco on July 11, 1999. First English play, "Bottoms Up!" ever brought to USA from India in April 1999. Marathi play by Bhakti Barve "Me Pul ani Phulrani" was performed on November 11, 1999 and On February 19, 2000, Hit Gujarathi comedy "Chanune Chapnu Kai Thai Nay Thai Nay".

           The mission of L A Dramatics is to preserve and promote our languages and culture. With this in mind, L A Dramatics started with Marathi play and will then bring more quality plays in Gujarati, English, Hindi and other   regional languages in the near future.

                   Bay area has had such an organization for a long time. It was time that we had an organization too. Although several people talked about such an idea at several different times, no one took the bold step till today. Sunil has our support and we will together work wonders as we always have.