The BITEN Clearpath awards Season V took place on the 13th of December, 2014 at the Russian Cultural Centre, Mumbai in the evening at 7.00 PM. This was the fifth year of the BITEIN awards and there was a collaboration with Clearpath, India for Season V. Along with the 10 categories in which BITEIN grants the awards, the Medal of Distinction was added for exemplary clinical work .The category opened this year was the “Aligner” category and a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal was awarded for the same.

The evening was conducted by Dr. A.Kumarswamy and Mr. Rakesh Nanda. The two of them not only compered the program but also came on stage and performed during the last act. Dr. Kumarswamy was the central protagonist for the girls in the Raj Kapoor classic “Main kaa karoon raam mujhe budha mil gaya” while Rakesh was the key for the grand finale of “Jeena yahan, marna yahan”.

The 10 awards were presented in three parts and was interspersed with a special themed entertainment in four acts. The emphasis was “Orchestra in Bollywood Music” and the four acts had a mix of the best talented dentists along with professional musicians and singers. Dr. Kumarswamy opened the evening with a welcome address and this was followed by Rakesh introducing the concept of the evening’s entertainment. The entertainment was split into four Acts and the awards were presented between the four acts. The opening act of the entertainment was dedicated to the brilliance of the legendary Shri V. Shantaram whose inclination for song and dance is legendary. The act comprised of four continuous performances. The opening was the epic song “Tu Chupi hai kahan” which was sung by Dr. Mona Kakar and Dr. Neelam and Aziz Shah danced beautifully to the 7 minute piece. This was followed by yet another classic song from the same movie, Navrang. This was “Shyamal shyamal baran” sung by medical student Mr. Swapnil Karnik. Dr. Meena Shah and her daughter filled in the colors on a canvas to bring to life the poetry written by Shri Bharat Vyas. This was followed by yet another classic “Yeh kaun chitrakar hai” which was accompanied by a wonderful collage of photographs from Dr. Adwait Aphale an avid photographer. The final performance of this act was a classic of one of the most talented music directors “Mr. Ramlal Choudhary”. The song “Pankh hoti to ud aati main” was sung by Ms Vaishali and a beautiful dance number was performed by Dr. Riddhi Shah and dental student Ms Namrata Dusa.

This was followed by the first four awards that were given away. The Vice Chancellor Dr. Arun Jamkar kindly consented to be a special guest to give away one of the award. A very special guest was Mrs Rita Choudhary wife of Shri Ramlal Choudhary. Mrs Rita Choudhary and Dr. Vaidehi Ketkar from Unilever gave away the award to Dr. Suhasini Nagda for “Administrative Excellence”. This was followed by Dr. Arun Jamkar and Mrs Guglani, a renowned Hindi teacher giving away the award to Dr. Sabita Ram in the “Outstanding Teacher” category. The next award in the “Beyond Dentistry” category was given away to Dr. Victor Rodriques by Mr. Mukesh Sharma, Additional Director of Door Darshan and Mr. Umesh Laljiani, chief of Carestream Dental. The fourth award in the “Clinical Research” category was given away to Dr. Vijay Deshmuh by Dr. Anand Tuteja, head of Clearpath India.

The second entertainment act was then presented and this also consisted of four pieces. This act was dedicated to the musical genius of the maestro Naushad sahab. This act also brought in the personal belief and philosophy on the basis on which BITEIN has been created. The first two pieces were renditions of the great Naushad sahab who gave two classical raag masterpieces – “Man tadpat hari darshan ko aaj” and “Madhuban main radhika naache re”. The first piece was rendered by Swapnil and the stage performance was a sufi dance by Dr. Sanket, Mr. Richendar and choreographer Aziz himself. The second piece was rendered by Sameer and was accompanied by a brilliant solo performance by Ms Nirzari Bhide who is a very accomplished Hindustani singer as well as an official Salso teacher. The third act was a rendition of a very popular song “Allah hee allah kiya karo, dukh na kisi ko diya karo” by Dr. Mona. This was accompanied by a very beautiful diya dance by Dr. Neelam and Dr. Medha. The final piece of this act was sung by Sameer “Allah ke bande” with 4 couples from the audience coming up on stage and waving a flag of peace and love. The entire essence of this act was captured in a few couplets in Hindi which were read out by Rakesh.

The second component of awards were then given away. Dr. Sushant Umre was given the award for “Dentistry Imprinted” by Dr. Ajit Shetty and Mr. Patil of Ergoptix who lent support to the BITEIN Awards. Then Dr. Vijay Leelaramani was given the “Corporate Enterpreuner” award by Mr. Sanjeev Chachondia and Dr. Kanir Bhatia. Mr. Tarek Feissali then received the “Technical Finnesse” award from Dr. Dhananjay Joshi and Mr. Jitin Doshi who provided support from Edental.in Subsequently Dr. Rajiv Khosla the gave away the three “Medals of Distinction” in the “Aligner” category to Dr. Kavitha Iyer for the Gold, Dr. Nawal Bavaskar for the Silver and Dr. Kartik Dholakia for the Bronze medal .

This was followed by the third entertainment act which was a dedication to the father son duo of S.D.Burman and R.D.Burman who introduced their own blend of magic to Indian film music for a few decades. Three numbers were presented, all showcasing the fantastic instrumentation and orchestra used by these masters of music.

The last set of awards were then given away with Dr. Himanshu Aeran receiving the award from Drs. Ajay & Mona Kakar. The PG Awards were then presented and our guests of honor Dr. Arun Jamkar and Mr. Aditya Raj Kapoor were called up on stage to give away the award. The five nominees Dr. Naziya Butt, Dr. Krithiga, Dr. Shikha Sharma, Dr. Vastavikta and Dr. Shalmali Dhond were all on stage and had to respond to Dr. Shetty’s questions. The winner was Dr. Shikha Sharma and she took away the PG trophy. In addition she also received a surprise gift in the form of a “Dental Loupe” from Ergoptix. This was followed by the final award which was the UG trophy. There were four nominees on stage, Dr. Eswar K, Dr. Vaibhav Kumar, Dr. Shibani Das and Dr. . Dr. Kanir Bhatia asked the questions and he picked Dr. Eswar K as the UG winner. There was a special cash prize given away to Eswar by Dr. Devchand Gala in the memory of his late son Dr. Rushabh Gala. The Gala Foundation has been magnanimously supporting this event for the past three years.

This completed the awards and was followed by the last entertainment act. This act consisted of a tribute to the legendary duo of Shankar Jaikishan and the famed brothers Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor. Four pieces were presented – two songs of the incomparable Shammi Kapoor and two of the showman Raj Kapoor. The act started with a very popular number of yesteryears “Main Kaa Karoon Ram mujhe budha mil gaya” sung by Dr. Mona and enacted on stage by the one and only Dr. A.Kumarswamy with Dr. Riddhi and Dr. Aparna being the damsels. They were supported by Dr. Smrti and Dr. Jayshree. This was followed by a Shammi Kapoor evergreen, “Badan pe sitare lapate hue” rendered by Mr. Pankaj and showing off the glittering sarees were Dr. Mona, Dr. Medha with Ms Sunita and Ms Seema. The third piece was one more tribute to the heart throb Shammi Kapoor with “Kis kis ko pyar karoon” sung by Sameer and on stage was none other than Dr. Ajit Shetty with his four girls – Dr. Neelam, Dr. Riddhi, Dr. Namrata and Dr. Aparna.

The grand finale was “Jeena yahan ..marna yahan” performed by all the singers with a solo mime act done by Mr. Rakesh. All the artists were on stage for this magum opus number till the curtains were drawn.