Katy Tamil Friends Grand 10th New Year Celebration
By Shobha Sivakumar
HOUSTON: The Tamil diaspora from Katy and the Greater Houston area gathered together to celebrate the New Year with friends and family at The Durgabari Society, Houston on January 2. While demonstrating solidarity with friends and family affected by floods in Chennai, by collecting clothes and necessities, it was indeed an occasion to commemorate the resilience of Chennai getting back on track by celebrating the New Year’s Day.
Well over 500 people were in attendance, with the 2016 Katy Tamil Friends (KTF) committee working around the clock over the holidays to ensure a fun time for everyone involved. The events kicked off about 4:30 PM and were planned in such a way that both adults and kids were fully occupied the entire time. Kids and Young adults had a blast with magic shows, face painting, balloon twisting, dance medleys and pizza.
In addition, the Katy and Greater Houston area kids, youth and adults showcased their talents including singing, skits, a flute concert , interactive dance and fashion shows and entertained the audience till dinner.
The sumptuous dinner catered by Annam restaurant was a true feast with buffet dishes including more than 15 varieties of Vegetarian and Non- Vegetarian food items and was appreciated by one and all.
Following dinner was the much anticipated light music show by Pinnacle Studios and Performing Arts. Composer/ Vocalist Karthika Mahadev was joined by super singers Barani Krishnan and Krishnamurthy L for this concert. The concert opened with melodious numbers to wide applause from the audience. The singers mesmerized the audiences with their voices and their selection of songs from the 80’s and 90’s. As the concert tempo picked up a notch, the upbeat music and shoe tapping numbers brought the kids and adults to the dance floor. It was a great family entertainment and a fun event for all to close out the evening of New Year celebrations. The concert lasted till 11:30 PM with everyone ending up dancing their hearts out.
Sincere thanks to Durgabari Society, for extending their support, Bombay Bazaar and Vishala Grocery for being one of the main Sponsors for the event. The other sponsors were MetLife who took care of the face painting, balloon twisting and other kids’ activities and also gave away TV, iPad as gifts. Best Brains, Lavanya Arts and Mitzi Piersol (Remax realtor) were also the sponsors.
Kudos to the team of volunteers without whose care and support the success of this event could not have been possible.
Team of Volunteers:
Agila Ilam, Anitha Chandrasekar, Anusha Satya, Arief, Balaji Lakshmanan, Chandran Viswanathan, Chandrasekar, Danesh Kumar, Gopal Krishnan, Hari Swaminathan, Ilamparithi, Jagan Annamalai, Jaiprakash, K Chanthirasekar, Kanchana Vijay, Kishore Kandasamy, Kuppusamy, Manix Vasan, Meenakshi Sundaram, Nagaraj Chinnadurai, Narayanan, Pari, Radhakrishnan, Ramji Ramasubramaniam, Roshan, Sangeetha Neelakandan, Sathish Vijayakumar, Satish Arumugam, Sathya Nagarajan, Shankar Karpagavinayagam, Sheik Hameed, Shoba Sivakumar, Shubha Varadharajan, Siva Kumar, Tony Sesayyan, Venkat Ponnusamy, Vignesh Manix, Vijaykumar, Yoganand Ramamurthy together with Marimuthu Natarajan made the event memorable, cherish able and a grand success.