By Our Correspondent
DUBAI/NEW DELHI: Father-daughter duo – Dubai based, Sambalpur born – Odisha’s youngest Scuba Diver Tisya Panigrahi (11) and her father Priyadarshee’s attempt to send out Nuakhai wishes from 40 feet below the sea on 10th September on the eve of Nuakhai festival has been noticed by both National & International Media.
The largest English newspapers in the Middle East- Gulf News and Khaleej Times have both published detailed articles about this unique event.The papers wrote about how a Dubai-based 11-year-old Indian girl along with her father dived off the coast of Fujairah, went upto 40 feet to send out an underwater greeting by holding celebratory placards on the eve of the ‘Nuakhai’ agricultural festival celebrated in their home state of Odisha in eastern India.
Gulf News did an unprecedented thing when it put this story on the front page. It published a picture of the father-daughter duo taken underwater, at the bottom of the front page and put out a detailed stoy on page 4. Gulf News described Nuakhai in detail, it said ‘Nua’ means new and ‘Khai’ means food and that the name Nuakhai is representative of the fact that farmers are in possession of the newly harvested rice – symbolic of a new ray of hope.Khaleej Times talked about how the father-daughter duo did this event to celebrate the festival and spread word about their culture and traditions.
According to Priyadarshee ‘Both the largest English newspapers in the Middle East simultaneously writing about this dive and the Nuakhai messages is a huge boost to the awareness and popularity of Nuakhai on an International level. These newspapers have very large circulation and have also put out these stories on their social media feeds like Facebook and Instagram and hence the core message gets amplified manifold and reaches a huge audience’.
Priyadarshee expressed happiness that this unique event has also brought joy to all the Odias across the globe. The unique setting of delivering the greetings – 40 feet under the sea was seen as a novel one by all the people. He also said that Tisya was a good sport all through and was the very excited to partner in this attempt to send out Nuakhai wishes and spread its popularity.
According to Tisya ‘Our grandfather, (Late Sriballav Panigrahi) used to speak about this festival a lot when he was around us. He used to say ‘Nuakhai unites the family and people forget their differences’. I miss my grandparents a lot and I miss going to Sambalpur to spend time with them’.
This news also went into mainstream national media with Outlook and Republic World mentioning this on their news websites. Even vernacular media – one of India’s largest newspapers Malaya Manorama picked up this story and published it online. It also carried a detailed video of this unique event. Pictures and videos of this father-daughter duo are circulating on social medial and are being liked by people who are finding this style of sending out greetings to be quite novel.
