Year 2006 saw us cross the magical figure of 100 franchise centers and our student strength crossed 10,000 plus enrolled students.
This was a performance that was bound to be noted the world over Appreciation flowed in and also fetched Aloha Gujarat a prestigious award in 2007 which we shall talk about later.
Yes! The National Level Competition was held in 2006 and we had more than 3600 students from across India who participated in the competition. It was held in the Indoor Stadium at Surat City. Although the number of participants was not very huge, the competition is remembered for the grandeur and the way it was conducted. None of the Aloha competition’s conducted till date globally has been able to match the grandeur and the extravagance of the competition that was held in Surat. It remains till date a benchmark of grandeur which has not been surpassed by any competition of Aloha held the world over.
If you look at the photograph which is attached, you will see that that it is probably one of the best pictures ever taken during any Abacus and Mental Arithmetic competition world over. There were no drones available during those times but the photographer managed to climb on to the roof of the stadium to take the photograph that you are looking at now. The Intensity and the dedication were complete.
We had a few Special Guests who graced the competition they were Mr. Loh Mun Sung, Mr. K Kumaran and Professor Chai from Taiwan. Prof. Chai is the inventor of the one bead abacus, the one bead Abacus has only the one bead in a vertical rod instead of 5 beads.
We still wonder how one could do the calculations on a one bead abacus and how is it possible?
He gifted Mr. Tushar his invention the one bead abacus with an instructional manual but it is still difficult to comprehend. Have a look at the attached photograph of the one bead abacus.
Our Competitions in 2005 – State Level and 2006 – National Level were well covered by the Print and TV media, the events were covered by more than 10 news papers and 3-4 TV channels who also covered the news of the event.
Mr. Chai was very impressed with Gujarati hospitality and he also had an adventures streak along with a nature of Exploration in trying out new cultural experiences. Mr. Tushar managed to convince him and Mr. Loh Mun Sung to wear a traditional dress for the competition and went out shopping a day prior to the competition.
In the Photographs below you can see them wearing our traditional outfits. To our knowledge until today it was the only time when Mr. Loh wore a full traditional outfit during a Competition which wasn’t Chinese or Malaysian in nature. This amply demonstrated the bonhomie & respect towards Mr. Tushar and the people of Gujarat.
We would like to know if any of you have come across or are in possession of any photograph of Mr. Loh in traditional dress which is not Indian, Chinese or Malaysian?
