Robin Raina Foundation (RRF) recently announced that a capacity audience of 1100 people attended the Sada-E-Ghazal concert held at the Glenn Memorial Auditorium on 16th Sep.’05. The concert was the first of its kind in Atlanta with three Ghazal legends – Ghulam Ali, Talat Aziz and Anup Jalota playing together for the first time in Atlanta. 

RRF also announced that the pre-show dinner on the 15th September at the Impact Center was a huge success with the foundation raising $143,000 in donations. The dinner was attended by an exclusively invited audience of approximately 200 people, and presided by the legendary cricketer Kapil Dev. The trio of Ghulam Ali, Anup Jalota and Talat Aziz also attended the pre-show dinner.

During the dinner, two bats were auctioned for a total sum of $7,900. The evening’s highlight was the magnanimity shown by Talat Aziz who donated $3100 for one of the signed bats. In a rare gesture, the RRF founder first donated $4800 for one of the signed bats and then in a spirit of friendship, gifted the bat to one of RRF’s ardent supporters Mr. PI Joy, who had made the second highest bid of $4700. 

The pre-show dinner had all the four celebrities speaking from the podium and conveying their strong admiration and support to RRF’s efforts to help the under-privileged. This was followed by a rather moving speech from the RRF Founder Robin Raina who talked about the reasons for all of us in privileged positions to step up and help the poor in the Indian sub-continent. He used real life stories of the children adopted to underscore his points. He talked about his recent trip to Pakistan and the need to help the poor there. He also elaborated on RRF’s plans to build a hospital for the poor on the outskirts of Delhi.

This moving performance was followed by an appeal by Robin Raina to all present, to pledge money to the cause of the under-privileged. The ensuing pledges at the dinner raised in total a sum of $143,000 with Robin contributing $120,800 out of it.

RRF spokesperson Sanjay Supehia also issued an appeal for more donations and announced that it has already heard from many more donors who promised to send their checks by post. All donations should be in favor of Robin Raina Foundation and should be sent to: RRF (Attention Sanjay Supehia), 2075 Lake Shore Landing, Alpharetta, GA 30005

Both the pre-show and the concert evenings will be remembered by all present for a long time for the true mix of magnanimity, great music as also for a true opportunity where the exclusive pre-show dinner audience was able to rub shoulders with the four celebrities, take pictures with them as also truly mingle freely with them.