Thaaram Onam 2026

 

Great participation across the board
  It was gratifying to see even participation across the entire group. Heard some new voices at the karoake ad-hoc session. Visiting parents mingled with each other and with other members of the community. New folks introduced themselves and got themselves inducted. Lot of good banter. 

Democratization of singing
At a recent amateur singing event, I had sung directly from smule on the iPad. Typically, I need to download and provide the track file. I found this exciting for how easy it would be for anyone to come in ad-hoc and participate. A teenager suddenly feels like singing a modern english song - come over to the stage, search the song, and sing! A visiting parent has a desire to sing a nostalgic old song - come over, search and sing. Anyone can come in and sing their favorites! That was the vision. 
Had a discussion with Girish on this, and we came up with the plan to bring in an iPad, an iPad stand, a cable that would connect from the mixer to the source (iPad ) with a headphone jack. Girish had a USBC connector as well which meant that even without the iPad and the iPad stand, one could just walk in with a phone and be enabled to sing at the event. I benefited from this phone USBC connectivity for my solo. Girish is the captain of the mixing ship.  Just when all of the new setup was live, Girish had to pick up his daughter. Ranjani is busy with MCing for the event. The group song team struggled to get the karaoke right in Girish's absence. However,  finally managed to have things working, and sung out, albeit distraught. 
These are teething problems that can always happen when trying something new. I personally did get the full benefit of the setup as I mentioned earlier as I sung directly from smule on my phone. So we are already at a place where anyone can walk in and present their song. Even when the sound clearly went for a toss in Girish's absence, things have actually gotten better. What is missing is a backup for Girish if he needs to step out. Thank you to a supportive and encouraging audience who stood by us as we struggled through the setup.

Games and teams
Another key take away from the event was the necessity of forming teams to drive the enthu for the games. While Bharathi and Gafoor organized many fun games, the lack of direction on who to cheer for saw the energy not surface enough. Games were great fun but the competitiveness was missing.

Pookkalam broke new ground this time! I think this is the best one I have seen for the Thaaram events so far.

Divya and Vipin stood out as the most actively engaged couple at the event. Divya did a lot of the leg work for the pookkalam coordination, while Vipin was the most active member on the decoration/clean up  team. He stood on top of 12 plus foot ladder to hoist the "nettipattam" and helped a lot with the after party cleanup. Swathi, Chris, and Ranjani drove the MCing. Great to see next generation participation from Swathi! Niya did an unplugged malayalam song with guitar while Swathi held the mike for her. Anjali had led the team for group dance, and was also a key player for the group song.  Manu, VipinDas took care of most of the overall coordination while Banerjee captained the decor team. The hall was all new and dandy. Very spacious. Thanks to Kiran for booking the hall. I was focused purely on the songs, and have minimal visibility on most of the other aspects, and am not the right person for a vote of thanks narrative! Thank you to everyone who helped get things together! Special thanks to Ajith for capturing the videos of the performances. Also, even while the sadya was bought, there is still a lot of work with the serving, arrangements etc - thanks to everyone who helped!. All I know is, all in all, it was a day very well spent! Until next time!