Recent activities

It's been a long break. We have stayed busy over the last few months although we haven't been updating the blog.

Here is an update of all our activities over the last few months.

Rama Navami celebrations in April 2009

Earlier this month, NZIFS organised to celebrate Rama Navami at the Kurunchi Kumaran Temple in Newlands.

On this ocassion, Nadalaya students, tutored by Jaishri Suresh, performed the entire Rama Charitha Geetham. This ragamalika compostion by Papanasam Sivam in Tamil, comprises more than 20 stanzas outlining the story of Ramayana, right from Rama’s birth to his coronation as the King of Ayodhya.

There were traditional prasadam offerings after the puja for Lord Rama was performed at the temple.

Many thanks to Hema and Sourirajan for the loan of their large Rama photograph for the occasion.

Thyaraja Aradhana in February 2009

In February, after most of the out of towners had returned from trips overseas, we held the Thyagaraj Aradhana at the Newlands temple again.

Apart from rendering the pancharatna krithis, there were other solo Thyagaraja kritihis performed on the occasion.

The aradhana ended with a puja to Saint Thyagaraja.

Thanks are due to Lalitha Balajee for their loan of the Thyagayya painting.

WCC Diwali event in October 2008

Our members were performing both on Stage 1 and 2 at the Diwali celebrations on Labour weekend in October last year.

On stage 1, there performed a Malayalam dance called Oppanna.

On stage 2, other members did a vocal performance of Carnatic songs and then a violin solo.

Veena concert and food stall

Sept 28 was a busy day for NZIFS members and committee alike.

First, there was the veena concert by Dr Jayanthi Kumaresh, accompanied by Patri Satish Kumar. And what a concert it was. Although the audience numbers were limited due to various reasons, the concert was simply splendid. Dr Jayanthi played with a lot of verve and feeling and she was able to give the audience a right mix of songs that they were completely taken up with.

Thanks to the Bhagavans for hosting the artists and thanks also to those who helped in the snack stall etc. Thanks to Lalitha Balajee for her help with the food preparation.

The committee was also faced with the challenge of manning the food stall at Vivek Kinra's annual dance show, almost continuously, from 2 pm onwards, until the end of Vivek's show at 8.30pm. This is a fund-raising activity that we have taken up since last year.

As the veena concert was from 3 to 6 pm, this involved quite a bit of organisation and could not have been achieved without help from various members. A special thanks to Kalyan, Jayashree Raghavan, Raghu, Asha, Ramakanth and Geetha Mohan.

All in all, it was a very successful evening. Needless to add, those who attended the concert or enjoyed the food at both venues were happy chappies.