The festival of Diwali is celebrated with great pomp and show in New England. The jubilant crown, Sange Muzhangu (Blowing of the Conche) – New England Tamil Sangam’s (NETS) Children’s day that was held on November 04, 2017 at the Keefe Tech Auditorium in Framingham, MA.  This evening was dedicated to our late beloved Tamil Poet Thiru. Bharathidasan. The poetic songs of this learned poet had made a special impact in Tamil Cinemas in yester years of 1950’s to 1960. 

NETS take a special care in promoting Tamil language by their dedication to all the Historical poets year after year during this special event. Suresh Krishnan, NETS committee member initiated the idea of drawing and competition and organized the event with logistics.  Math and Spelling Bee competitions were held in various centers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and was supervised professionally by our NETS team.

The event commenced by singing the invocation song Thamizh Thai Vazhthu by the audience. This was followed by the Presidential speech which was nothing less than the ones well heard in Capitol Hill by our beloved Mr. Manohar Ganapathy. He not only spent his valuable time in going through details of arranging the program but also tirelessly made sure that the event was run with grace and charm.

Tamil Pechu Yengal Moochu was the first program and Nilavi Venkat, in her melodious voice sang “Thamizhuku Amudhendru Per” from a tamil movie in 1960, a great tribute to the poet. Following this, children were dressed adorably and participated in Fancy Dress.  This was a delicious feast to the eyes and ranged from Big Boss Oviya, Bahubali, Stylish Thamizhachi, Andal, Radha and Krishna and many more sweet characters.

Every child is born with the hidden talent.  In the next segment, Talent Show children played the flute, danced Karagatam (ancient folk dance), danced and sang bollywood songs and performed a classical Bharathanatyam as a tribute to Bharathidasan.  This song Thunbham Nergaiyil is from a Tamil movie in 1953, sung by Sudha Ragunadhan and was set to explicit choreography by Smt. Veena Teli and was performed by her disciple Varshini Arumugam.  

The amazing treat of the evening Tamil Isai, Nadanam and Nadagam was an amazing cocktail of music, dance and drama. The jewel of this segment was the drama enacted by children who had dressed up as Thiruvalluvar, Kannadasan, Bharathiyar and Bharadhidasan accompanied by modern Tamil poets.

The evening continued by literacy competitions were children narrated Thirukkural followed by Sollungal Vellungal, a jeopardy game well conducted by Prabhu Ram and Karthi Arunuchalam. The solo Classical Competition and Group Non‐Classical Competition was filled with young talented dancers from the New England area.

NETS salutes and thanks all the talented judges who spent their valuable time and expertise in providing unbiased results based on the high level of competition held. NETS extends hearty congratulates to all the prize winners of the competitions. The children felt so honored to receive their prizes from Thiru. Sunderasan T. Sambandam, Harvard Tamil Chair who also addressed the audience by his eloquent speech congratulated all the participants. Our heartfelt thanks to all the children who won our hearts by participating with their fullest talent and effort in all the segments.

Ms. Bameila Venkat, the ex-president and on the board of directors, in her profound fluent pure Tamil and enthralling voice introduced the new committee members. Our new president Manoharan and his cabinet ministers, Shanthi Sundarmurthy, Secretary, Ram Sundaram, Treasurer and Sumathi Narayanan, Joint Secretary, Senthilraja Ramasamy, Viveka Devadoss, Prabhu Ram, Karthi Arunachalam, Krish Velmurugan, Saritha Venkatesh, Prasad Gurumuthy,  Karthikeyan Krishnamurthy, Suresh Krishnan and Bala Subramaniam.  

We would like to extend our thanks to our Mega sponsor Smt. Sumathi Narayanan and to our segment sponsors law office of Sonja Salami and Mr. Matt Johnson, New York Life insurances for the trophies and medals sponsored.  The enjoyment continues by the audience enjoying the photography taken by Thiru. Vijay Srinivasan and videography taken by Thiru. Krish Velmurugan. Thanks to Bala Subramaniam for the professional and perfect handling of the music and audio files for all the cultural events. Karthi Arunachalam and myself Saritha Venkatesh thoroughly enjoyed working together in Mcee the whole evening. The program was a smooth run without undue delay at the back stage well co-ordinated by Sumathi Narayan and Shanthi Sundarmoorthy. NETs would also like to thank Prasad Gurumuthy who completely handled with care the snacks and dinner event.  We would like to thank Dosa temple for catering dinner and snacks. NETs also extends its heartfelt thanks to all the adult and youth volunteers for continuing care and support in making the event a grand success.

We would like to invite you for the upcoming NETS Pongal Vizha on February 3rd 2018 at Littleton High school, Littleton, MA.

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