Chess tourney for kids

The Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival 2009 will host a chess competition for children under 12 years

It will take place next month (in January) at the Chess Square of the Nageswara Rao Park in Mylapore. Sundaram Finance will present prizes to the winners of the chess contest.

For registration, please call: 98416 03285 or 28558077

Design Contest for Students: Dec.28

A pre-event show this one . . 

Open to students in class 4 to 7. The challenge - to colour a design so well that it is chosen to be imprinted on special coffee mugs that we will give away as mementos and prizes at the Fest.

The mugs will also be on sale - limited edition. 

At Nageswara Rao Park, Luz.

Dec.28, 4 pm. For an hour.

You need to bring the colouring stuff - oils, water, crayons, pencils - and colour the design sheet we will provide.

There is no prior registration. Entries will be judged later by artist V V Ramani.

Kolam Contest Registration Opens

The books are open to register participants in the hugely popular Kolam Contests.

The dates to mark - Jan 24 and 25, 3.45 pm. 

South side of North Mada Street, Mylapore.

There will be two contests and each accommodates in about 101 people ( that is if Nisha's sister cyclone does not hit the city between now and mid January!) 

Yes, men and boys can also sign up.

But a person can sign up only for one contest.

The person to call is Preetha who is another veteran MF volunteer. The number - 94443 81298

The first caller was from Chingleput - this woman never fails to sign up.

This year we should have more people from the suburbs - thanks to early promos at the SF offices.

Welcome to Mylapore Festival 2009

Welcome!

I didn't get a Santa Claus assignment tonight so there was time to launch posts on Mylapore Festival 2009.

Sundaram Finance, as before is our sponsor.

And the venues remain the same - in and around Sri Kapali temple.

The dates have changed - Jan 22 to 25. Thursday to Sunday.

There will be two unique events on the calendar - one, a Mylapore Sound and Light show which will play on all four evenings of the Fest. Two, a therukoothu series on the Mahabharatam that will be staged on four evenings though the story will for the Fest start midway from the epic.

The rest of the calendar should be the way it has always been though there will be a few new events that encourage community participation ( more details on these will be posted soon).

The fest web site - www.mylaporefestival.com - is being updated and should come alive soon. . .

Our contact - 98405 44629 - Revathi R, our longtime festival co ordinator.

Looking back; looking forward

We have just recovered. 

And the Pongal hols are an excuse to relax further.

The Chennai Sangamam is with, full blast and a tad loud.

In some ways it is rocking the city.

In some ways, it built up on many little things we have done at the Mylapore Festivals. 

The concerts and workshops in the park, the folk shows, the food adda . . .

And that makes us feel good.

What will make us feel better is when other larger areas of the city flesh out their own fests.

We feel dejected that Triplicane is labouring the idea after we gave it a big boost two years ago.

This is just the area which should have a vibrant fest of its own.

Thiruvanmiyur could be inspired too.

Purusawalkam is another area that should have a fest. Washermanpet and Royapuram too.

There are bigger things to aim for now. How about a One Way or a Only Walk zone on the Mada Streets on Sundays for a few hours please?

We will be asking the Traffic Police Chief to consider this idea.

If this succeeds, then the Mada Veedhis will have another life. 

And we will be encouraged to go forward with another idea - host a 'Sound and Light' show in the Sannidhi Square, on Mylapore. We have a script ready and we have some talented people to do the music, the visuals and the soundscape.

Does this idea sound good? Let us have your feedback too.

And tell us what we can do to improve this Fest which is now know outside the country! (we have with us a French artist who has been studying the kolams. . . )

As for me, I'd like to have a few more creative spaces for children besides the one at the park.

Also, we plan to have more senior, well known Mylaporeans give talks on life in Mylapore.

Plus, there will be a slew of documentaries on this area which will be screened at the 2009 Fest.

And I'd like the Pallankuzhi Contests to be a rage and the kolams stretch from the top end of North Mada Street!

See you in 2009. 

Heritage Walk is Big Hit

The effort pays off.

The heritage tour of '10 unique Mylapore houses' on  Saturday is a big hit. 36 people plus 2 more joined us.

From Luz to Mylapore's temple area, C R Raghuram and K J Suriyan Naraynan of Namma Mylapore lead the enthusiastic group which comes from all over the city.

20 mins after they start, I get a call from a couple, tourists from Assam, who have got to know about the Mylapore Fest and are keen to be on this walk. We network them at the Mylapore Police Station.

"You made my day,"says Harazika.

Thats what this Fest aims to do.

PS; If you love to go on heritage walks, we are officially promoting all the different walks in the city.

Mail us your name and contact - mylaporetimes@vsnl.com

Day 1 and 2

The rains challenged us. We kept our cool.

Day 1 was just fine.

It made immense sense to kick off at 7 pm on the Thursday so that we could escape the peak hour traffic.

Even the performances were tight.

We need this warm up evening to get the buzz going.

Wish we had another set of folk artistes groups to add to the colour and sounds on the main stage.

The new set of street lamps we made got all the attraction and we have begun to offer them on sale.

Foreign tourists picked up a lot of souvenirs.

It rained minutes after the last show ended on the main stage on Day 1.

Relief. Then it poured and poured.

It did the next morn after the park kutcheri.

But we didn't give up hope.

Clear skies from 3 pm onwards and we are in high spirits.

We have close to 18 volunteers helping us, two co ordinators.

They are raw but they strive.

The Kerala-based panchavadyam artistes take time to roll the music and the martial arts by music.

The wet evening keeps off the book sellers and some craftspeople who have stalls alongside the temple tank. 

And at 10 pm, we begin work on marking out spaces for kolams. Back breaking work!

Saturday's Buzz

Hosting the kolam contest is now a breeze. We've been doing it for over a  decade now.

The local police help. Esp. the Traffic Police wing.

We expected 126 people but my guess is that 110 must have taken part in the contest.

And most seem to hail from the Mylapore and K K Nagar area.

Perhaps there is a need to raise the profile and attract women from all over the city.

And the suburbs too.

The events on the main stage rolled well after the contest.

The team of acrobats led by Syed Jaffer drew the biggest applause. 

We quickly screened an old film on Mylapore. A 30mins docu which focuses on the need to restore and revive heritage here.

The classical dance which had to start only at 7.30 pm because of prodosham went on till 9.20 pm and people stayed on. 

And life in the Art Street refused to die even as late as 10.10 pm.

Which gives us an idea - can we have the street life on till late for a week during the fest?

What do you think?

Mail us feedback please!

Jump to Day 3

Apologies for blanking the blog!

Day 3.11.05 am and a breather.

In this fantastic sunny weather we had a great kutcheri in the park which ended with great pongal and sundal served by the Walkers Group, a tradition now followed as part of the Fest.

Midway thro' the kutcheri, dozens of eager beavers landed up and we understood why T T Srinivasaraghavan, head of Sundaram Finance was mildly upset.

The excited voices were drowning the mikeless kutcheri.

These excited people were at the launch of the Treasure Hunt. And what a kick off it was. Everybody scooted out. Some, relaxed to get a grip on the clues.

I guess this will be a fun contest.

Back to base, we are getting ready for the long day ahead starting with Pallankuzhi contest 2.

The first one held on Sat., had 36 plus teams.

Today, there should be more.

Great sunshine day. Finale on!

Day 2 : Wet but fun!

Our cell phones buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. . .
Is the evening Art Contest at the park on?
Will Rahnu's cartoon workshop go on as scheduled?
All the artistes called to confirm whether they can get ready for the evening show.
The girls at the Art Street were calling to say that they would miss the fun that evening if it rained!
The participants of the Saturday Kolam Contest were the most worried.
I guess I would have answered more than a thousand calls.
But we kept our spirits high.

At 2 pm, the skies smiled at us.
Cartoonist Rahnu was game to have his board on the Chess Square at the Park surrounded by pools of water at 4. 30 pm
60 kids turned up for the contest and the workshop.
Rahnu liked all the kids to learn the art of cartooning. And then break for the contest!
The walkers in the park, the parents all joined the fun and watched the lines and circles turning into lions and tigers!
The Panchavadhyam from Kerala and Velakali rocked the park.
Sri Kapali temple hosts a religious discourse on all Friday evenings. So the festival dance programme was advanced to 5.30 pm.
Guru Sujatha Mohan's disciples presented all the pieces on Mylapore and concluded with a Kapaleeswarar Pancharatnam.
Books, arts and handicrafts took cautious steps to face the rains any moment.
Navbharat School from T. Nagar travelled on the wet roads.
We retired quickly to save energies for the the next two days - Kolam and Pallankuzhi contests, longer shows, quiz and talk!

Day one at the fest

Cloudy weather kept us teasing.
At the morning kutcheri at the Nageswara Rao Park, two kids from the US Jayashri and Shruthi Sarathy were experiencing a different climate, atmosphere and audience.
Good take off for a fest.
It rained just after the kutcheri.
We were planning ahead for the day. An evening workshop for kids and an Art Contest for kids.
Arts person Kamla Ravikumar, the resource person for the Clay modelling workshop called to say that she hasn't been doing well.
But landed at the Park sharp at 5 pm protecting herself with a sweater and the kids jumped in excitement!
Dolls, animals, cellphones, faces of grandma - all came alive in clay.
The Lambadi folk group from Andhra landed up in colourful costumes. And the festival evening spirit was on!

When we moved to the temple area, the books and handicrafts stalls were already rolling their businesses.
The food street was catching up with spread of kozahakattai, kuzhi paniyaram and two-in-one dosas
The dance at the temple had a hick up. The sound system had to be replaced!
On the main stage, guru Hemalatha's students rocked with three different types of folk dances.
Andhra folk dances followed.
The end of day one.
Then came the rain. It poured through the night!

On the Mada Veedhis

Time is ticking.
And we have been checking out the Mada Streets to ensure they are in some shape.

This fest has to live in open spaces. And that is indeed the biggest challenge.

The kolam registrations are overflowing; we have a waiting list now.
The Pallankuzhi contests are full.

The Treasure Hunt registrations are over 50. Thats wow and this hunt is going to be fun and testing too.
And we hope to see lots of Mylaporeans at the Quiz.

But the action will be on streets.
Fine arts students, though on hols, are ready to paint the street red, blue and green.

The Food Street will offer a good mix - Chettinad, Kerala and Tamil Nadu food and snacks. The kol-kottais may run out by 7.30pm, we fear so we told Sridhar of Taste IT Foods to bring lots more!

We have some colourful lamps all over East Mada Street.

So, bring your friends and families to the Fest.
And please tell us what else we could create on the streets.

Santa can be a spoiler!

Yes. This isn't the best of times to confirm participation in a fest.

Christmas hols can spoil parties you have in mind!

Stella Maris' Fine Arts Dept has always been a welcome partner in our Fest.
But the unscheduled hols during the rains and Xmas hols, the students scattered and colleague Revathi has been tugging the phone lines to form the team.

Its working. And we also have a few neighbourhood creative minds joining them to create the Art Street which is a colourful place when the curtains go up on Jan.3 evening.

If you are young, creative and want to be at the Art Street, drop us a line; we have some space left.

Mylapore Quiz: won't be easy!

Ashwin Prabhu is the Quiz Master for the Mylapore Quiz 2008.

Holidaying in Goa, Ash who works for a private bank and is an ardent quizzer and a more ardent Mylaporean, didnt refuse the assignment.

"But aren't all the questions on Mylapore asked?", asked Ash.

I shook my head. How can a quiz run out of questions.

I didnt want to spoil Asfwin's party in Goa and we left it at that.

Just now we have run up a bank of 102 questions including 40 pictures which the Mylapore Times photographer, Saravanan, pulled out of his library.

And on Christmas eve we had 31 teams signed in and we hope we will have at least 75 teams when the D day arrives - Jan 6, Sunday.

Its much easy to crack the standard quizzes but a localised quiz sounds easy but can show up a lot of your ignorance!

No, we dont plan to have a tough quiz. Ashwin should get some fun quizzing that afternoon.

So if you are a quizzer or a Mylaporean, sign on now.

This is the first quiz of 2008 in the Quiz Capital ( is Madras the capital anyway?)

Sound and Light withdrawn;sorry!

We had to decide on this. 

With some components of the planned Mylapore 'Sound and Light' show  getting delayed we decided to withdraw it.

It was a difficult decision. But since it was a first time event and there were many strings to it, we said 'withdraw'.

But the project will build in 2008 and may even premiere in early 2008.

We hope to have with us folk troupes from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, courtesy South Zone Cultural Centre, Thanjavur.

Also, Subham Ganesan has withdrawn from the Food Street.

For the Fest, we will have different kinds of food on offer from different sources.

Big attendance at Pallankuzhi Workshop

Five events were on at the P S School campus on Saturday, 22nd.

Ours was so different from the concerts and sales elsewhere.

And it throbbed with life.

I was good to see many children eager to learn more about pallankuzhi from resource person Dr. Balambal at the 2nd workshop.

We hope each contest ( there are two) will have at least 100 people.

That will indeed be a crowd to manage.

After kolam, it has to be pallankuzhi.

Is there some other game / art you feel we should promote next year?

Tell us here!

Contest for Cooking Smarties!

This idea came in a flash.

We were planning the Food Fest on Sundareswarar Street ( it is messy and we will need to sweat to clean it) and then this came up.
How do we involve people in this act?

Cookery Contest? We had one last year and the response was good.
But this time, its different.

We invite people to send their recipes to the Food fest organiser. Recipes on dry snacks - east to make, but daring in idea and keeps to tradition).
He will select a few and even had them made and served each day of the fest!

So, all you people who love cooking, take a shot at this.

Mail your recipes to - Subham Ganesan at 210, St. Mary's Road, Mandaveli, Chennai. You can even drop it off at his store.

The best will get hampers.

Spread the word. Lets get about 50 recipes.

Tell your grandma about this.

We need volunteers!

Yes, we need another dozen. Ten should do.

Revathi, my colleague, hosted a meeting of the first set of volunteers.
12 attended it at the Mylapore Times office on Sunday last.
All of them have been given assignments.

One senior woman who lives on the Mada Veedhi wanted to work all four days!
Great spirit.
She also wanted to take part in the Pallankuzhi contest!

Since some events need 2/3 volunteers, we'd love to have more Mylaporeans in.

Call Revathi now on 98405 44629.
(Avoid calling between 10 am and 1 pm; that time is for working on the December season!)

All volunteers get a Fest Tee. And some goodies.

Sound and Light Show

We hope this idea works.

It is new to 2008 at the Fest - a sound and light show on the core of Mylapore.

The focus is on the temple and the Mada veedhis.

Sounds simple but the butterflies are around and about!

For, there are many components to this show.

It has dance and music, it has video and docu-film, it has mime and narration.

And two dozen people are involved in it.

Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, scholar and arts activist, is working on the script.

Dancer Sashirekha Rammohan is directing the dancers and actors.

Dancer Priya Murle should have done the Mylapore kuravanji. But she's busy with the 'season' so she will guide another dancer with this delightful piece. 

Another dancer, Gayathri Balagurunathan, is also busy on stage and will present a piece on Goddess Karpagambal, through her dancer colleagues.

Mohan Das Vadakara has been out with her camera shooting. And if Nagaraj cuts the film well, there is a delightful cameo docu on one of Mylapore's colourful streets. Which one? Wait for the show!

I am hoping we will do well with this. Pardon us if we slip. Once sharp and smart, this is the kind of show we should have up every weekend outside/inside the koil.

The show is on every evening at the Fest.

2008 edition rolls

Pardon us for arriving late here.

The 2008 edition of the Mylapore Festival should be with us soon.

We have been keeping pace with the famed December season here in Madras.

And it is a challenge.

We started work on the Fest in late August.

Planning on paper is easy.

Making things happen isn't.

Some things have worked this year around.

RASI, that landmark store on Sannidhi Street, has made peace with us.

Its owner Jayaraman had a long chat and promises to lend a hand for the fest after holding it back these past years.

Which means there will be space for more seats in that quadrangle and a clear pathway for people who wish to shop at his store and those who head to the temple.

Thanks Jayaraman; it pays to work together.

The managers of RR Sabha on Sundareswarar Street have also promised to plan the construction work here so that we can have our famed Food Mela out on the street.

RR Sabha's  grand old hall was pulled down a year ago and a new one is coming up.

The Food Mela is a great hit and we will have Subham Ganesan back with us on the street.

The special menu list will be out soon. 

New at the Fest - Mylapore Quiz, Mylapore Treasure Hunt, Mylapore Sound and Light Show, Pallankuzhi Championships and a new heritage walk of old houses.

I've got to run off now to check out the owners of a few houses for the walk . . .

If you have suggestions to make, shoot them!