Pongal the harvest festival of Thamilnadu is a time of joy and celebration for Tamils. New England Tami Sangam succeeded in the recreating the spirit of Pongal in the celebrations held on February 12, 2006 at the R J. Grey Junior High School in Acton, MA.

The program opened with the traditional Thamizh Thai Vazhthu coordinated by Dr. Uma Nelliappan who also served as the MCEE for the evening. The program featured several dances both folk and classical along with musical items  and tamil skits.  Traditional bharatantayam presentation by Anushya Pandiyan and carnatic music presentation by Aishwarya Ayyapan  were crisp.  Amrita Saigal and Amudha Pazhasamy presented an unusual “Shiva Paravathy “ Vairamuthu composition   in the Bharatanatyam style while Shivani Kumar presented a lovely piece from Morning Raga.

“Kavadi” the folk dance from Thamilnadu was beautifully presented by two young girls (children of Jayashree and Shivasubramanium).  Poornima Surya, a dancer who has moved to the New England recently also presented a lovely Kavadichandu in Bharatantayam style.

Tamil film numbers presented by kids had the audience clapping their hands and tapping their toes to the rhythm of the music.  Aparna Ramsundar, Poornima Sriram and Aarthi Shivakumar directed a lovely medley. Iswarya Balaji and Subapradha Narayan's film dance presentations showed that when it came to dance, they could give any of the Tamil heroines a run for their money.  Anushya Pandian, Kavitha Muralidharan, Madhavi Muralidharan, Niveda Ram, Aashika Nagarajan and Bhavna Chalupadi presented “Devuda Devuda” a superhit number from Chandramukhi.

The Tamil skits presented by children as young as five were very impressive not only for the quality of the script but also for the clarity with which the young children delivered the Tamil dialogue.  The program ended on wonderful note with the fabulous playing of the keyboard by Smt.Vitoboi Sathanandam, who is the mother of one of the committee members (Balaji Sathanandam)

Nalafoods of New Hampshire donated part of the evening's dinner and the rest was catered by Masala in Billerica. The tasty meal help raise funds to support Tamil Sangam. Balaji Sathanandam who helped coordinate the event was pleased with the turnout. “We expected 200 people and over 400 showed up. We are delighted to see the response. We ask people to join the organization and help move the Sangam forward“ said Sathanandam.
Prem Natarajan,  Illango Chinnasamy,  Shiela David, Aravindan
Ganesan,  Uma Nellaiappan, Chandrika Govardhan  and other  members of the coordinating committe should be congratulated on working so hard to put a fine event together.

To get more information about New England Tamil Sangam please check out their website at http://www.netamilsangam.org.

|