TATA FOLKS RAISE THE CURTAIN FOR THE MONTHLY GET-TOGETHERS:

-By Samatha Harish & Basavaraj. Benki

 

May 17, 2001 witnessed the first ever community gathering for celebrating the Birthdays, Wedding Anniversaries, Welcome, Farewell  and any other events pertaining to the TCS’ers along with their spouses and kids in the Blatnick Park on the River road. The lushly green park was spacious enough to accommodate well over 90 members and could bring the summer smiles on their faces.

 

The party was set in motion at 6.30 p.m as the group was welcomed by Samatha Harish who also compered the events, along with Basavaraj. Benki. And a prayer by Suchitra Ramkrisnan marked an auspicious note.

 

 Anil Ron, the BRM addressed the gathering and called for an early start of Tournaments followed by the Picnic for the year 2001. Anil stressed the importance of everyone’s active participation to keep the community alive and also suggested spreading the tournaments throughout the year.  He also requested members to contribute towards website by sending articles and announced a prize for the best article of every month.  He came up with an idea of a ‘community fund’ with a $15 contribution per earning head for the next 3 months.  All the members approved this suggestion with much enthusiasm and applause.

 

Konkat hurled two of his Telugu Songs over the crowd. Then the new and the special twin baby-girl members of our community,  Shreya and Shruti,  who would be turning one year on May 28, 2001 were invited to the stage. The proud parents Ashwini Kumar & Poonam Tyagi helped the cute twin kids to cut the ‘little cake’ exclusively ordered for these babies. Manga & Tapan did a commendable job by arranging for the cakes and other refreshments.

 

Basav took the opportunity of inviting all the birthday boys/girls of this month namely Kamalakannan, Praveen K Sharma, Sreenadha Reddy, Shekhar Suryanarayan, Sarath Babu, Gopal Murty, Venkat Rami Reddy and  Samatha to participate in the ‘Apple Picking Game’ conducted by Padmaja. The group stepped out of the pavilion roof-cover and gathered on the field to encourage the participants. The participants soon realized that it was not so easy to run from the first table to the second and pick the apple into their mouth with their hands tied back. Additionally they had to run back to the first table and drop the apple. The orders in which they finish the race determine the order in which they cut the cake. Sharat Babu took the lead followed by Rami Reddy and other members amidst loud applause and cheers.

 

Then, the two couples Laxmi & Selvam and Priya & Nagendran,  whose  Wedding Anniversaries fell in this month were invited. Lavanya conducted ‘Peeling the potato’ game, in which the couple who peels more number of potatoes within the allotted 90 sec would be the winners. There was a lot of cheering and applause as the husband and wife took the turns in the peeling activity. Priya & Nagendran peeled more potatoes to cut the cake first followed by Laxmi-Selvam. 

 

The new additions to the community viz,  Dhamodaran, Kalyani, Janaki Rama Prasad, Muthu Kumar, Balaj i(along with his better half & a kid)  and Kishore Kumar,  gave their self-introduction   to the crowd and cut the ‘Welcome Cake’.  Then Basav  introduced all members of our  community  with due recognition to their contribution and active participation in the various events held so far. This was followed by a group song by Senapathi, Padmaja, Tapan, Vanitha.  After this,  Raghu, the Chief-Editor of our website,  mesmerized the crowd with his gifted melodious voice, which was followed by a  Shayiri by Yash.

 

Some more fun was in the offing,  when Lavanya & Nagraj Atlur conducted the “Animal Family Game” for the entire group.  Chits containing named member of various animal families were distributed to all.  Soon, people started shouting aloud in order to locate their other animal  family members.  Finally, the members of the ‘Horse family’ consisting of Bhagavan, Tapan,  Priya Nagendran & Sitaramanath was the first to form the ‘complete family’ and to win the game.

 

Anil Ron then came onto the dais and thanked each and everyone for making the family event a triumph and a big success and requested the community folks to keep the spirit alive for the future days to come.

 

Finally, the party was completed with the group photographs covering all the members. And, as the members started walking to their cars for returning homes, the late evening’s chill-weather got chilled itself as it was unable the fade the shade of the joy and smiles off their face.