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The Arts

Asha draws sellout crowd in Chicago

Shanthi Shankarkumar

Asha Bhosle is expected to draw the largest audience of her six-city tour of the US in Chicago on April 8. After near sellout performances in Los Angeles and Florida last week, the evergreen playback queen is expected to draw a capacity crowd of 4,000 at the impressive Arie Crown Theatre in Chicago. The theatre is considered one of the best in the Mid-West and Bhosle herself is said to be pretty excited about performing at a venue with magnificent acoustics. Asha Bhosle was in the US last year as well, but did not perform in Chicago.

The show in Chicago is being sponsored by Polo Builders (an NRI developer and builder in the Chicagoland area), the Indian Medical Association Charitable Foundation and the Association of American Physicians for India Charitable Foundation.

The Chicago performance alone is costing the organisers $100,000, but they are confident of raising $50,000. "The proceeds will go towards the expansion of health care services for local immigrants here and more people, particularly in pre-health care, will be covered by these services," said Madan Kulkarni, one of the organisers.

The IMA also runs a free charitable clinic to service this section, in collaboration with the Indo-American Centre.

The singer has already performed at Washington, DC, New Jersey, Florida and Los Angeles before coming to Chicago. Her two-week tour will end in Dayton, Ohio.

Asha Bhosle brings with her a thirty-member troupe, which includes dancers from Bollywood and Sudesh Bhonsle, a leading mimicry artiste, who is also known for lending his voice to the hit songs sung by Amitabh Bachchan on screen. The diva could not be reached for comment at 3.30pm (CST) since she was asleep, having arrived in Chicago at 1pm.

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