Pageant and gaiety mark Kerala Association of New Jersey's Onam (a review by J Panicker)

Onam was celebrated by the Kerala Association of New Jersey on Sunday, 08/30/’15, at 12.00 noon at the Montgomery High School Auditorium, Skillman, NJ. About 1,100 people attended.

The program was overall very good !

The check-in was smooth, well set up and managed, probably one of the best I have seen at functions like these. The red carpet and arch looked beautiful and appealing. It gave a sense of direction to the people when entering.

The Onam feast was excellent ! This was probably the best catered feast I ever had anywhere in the recent times. The dining hall, seating, service and dinner plates were all very good. One additional serving station would have been helpful, instead of the just two, to serve about 1,100 people in a short span of time, as people were waiting in long lines. The spoons were square and not quite the type of dinner spoons.

The pookkalam was good, but could have been better. Pookkalam in circles would have been more appealing than squares. The KANJ poster behind the pookkalam was excellent, striking and ideally placed !

The Mahabali procession started at about 2.30 pm. The Mahabali and chendamelam were good, could have been better. The thaalapoli was good. A larger number would have added to the effect. A rather flat tray for the thaalam would have looked much better and original than the aluminum food container. The procession gradually lead to the stage after a full round inside the auditorium which was a pretty good idea as it gave a prolonged sense of celebration ! The Mahabali’s throne was excellent, which many organizers take lightly, seating him on a regular plastic chair. The “kaikottikali” by Malini Nair’s group was excellent. They danced around a traditional lamp (that was not lit ?). Then King Mahabali “spoke” to the audience, which was actually unnecessary as it can never look or sound original or real !

The public meeting began at about 3 pm with the ceremonial lamp lighting. Chief guest was Upendra Chivukula, the Utility Commissioner with NJ State. Ruth sang the American national anthem and Abhishek the Indian national anthem. Both were pretty good. The general secretary of KANJ spoke and welcomed all. The president of KANJ then spoke, said KANJ is a family and this is an important moment as heads of various local organizations were present. The convener of the function then spoke and introduced his 3 co-conveners to the audience. Ragy Thomas, Babu Thomas Thekkekara, Ajayan Venugopalan, C J Roy of Confident Group, Raju Kunnath of Medcity, Sunil Tristar and some others were honored and recognized on stage, with plaque, ponnaada, bouquet of flowers, etc. It was indeed great on the part of KANJ to honor and recognize several. Honoring talents and service is one thing and honoring sponsors is quite another. The meeting took a very long time and ended at 04.20 pm, i.e. almost an hour and half. Jessica Thomas was the MC, just for the meeting. She did n’t seem to be her usual self and looked a bit confused at times.

Roshi & Aggie, on a pre-recorded video shown on the video screen, kind of acted like MCs for the rest of the program. They did good and looked good, however, this being a live program, a video is not an ideal option and a live MC would have been much more suitable.

A dance followed by Bindiya Prasad and group which was excellent.
Suma Nair sang a Malayalam song “kaathodukaathoram…” which was excellent.
Malini Nair and her group performed a medley fusion dance which was excellent.
The famous singer Jassie Gift was presented as surprise and he sang two songs, “Jillele Jillele” and “Lajjavathiye …”, needless to say, both were excellent. Interestingly, he sings the song “Lajjavathiye ….” now much better than his own original !
Siji Anand sang a Malayalam song “ kaanaan njaanum poraam …” which was excellent.
Jemson Kuriakose sang a Malayalam song which was pretty good.

Next was a skit which was excellent. Josekutty as Pathrose, Malini Nair as Kathrina the whining wife and Jose Thenplackal gave an excellent performance. Malini Nair really surprised me with her acting skills ! Kuttappan, Thangal, and Sanjeev Nair also did a good job.

Then a rather long video was shown about “a look back at the Malayalam movies” which was good, but seemed quite unnecessary and out of context.

A coffee break followed. Unfortunately there was no coffee or tea available at the coffee station, only snacks, which disappointed many !

A solo kathakali followed which was pretty good, but duration was too long. A classical art form like kathakali may not be enjoyed by all but only a limited few.
Next was a cinematic dance by Roshi and group, which was excellent ! This was probably the most interesting item of the evening. Christa Mathews and Sunish Jacob really stood out.
A solo song by Suma Nair followed, “maane …” which was excellent.
The Kuttanaadan dance by Bindya Prasad’s group was excellent. However, this was a reapeat, performed only about a week ago elsewhere.
Lakshmi sang a Malayalam song “ Kalyanaprayathil …” which was very good.
Siji Anand sang a Tamil song, “kandaal kandaal …” which was very good.
Sandeep, Lakshmi and Subru sang a group song “pachakilikoodu …” which was very good.
Jemson Kuriakose sang a Malayalam song “ee madhurakinaavin ….’ which was very good.
The program ended at 07.30 pm with a song “Kuttanaadan punjayile …” with all KANJ officials dancing on the stage.

The biggest accomplishment of the whole program was the outreach ! Literally everybody came ! The executive committee members and conveners all obviously have worked very hard to accomplish this outreach and it did indeed pay off ! It was like they all have a Ph D. in outreach ! The team really has to be commended for this ! For any function, the success is actually defined by the number of attendees much rather than the quality of the program. In that sense this program was a clear success. As the current Gen. Secretary once said “Nammude Association Alley”, that spirit was clearly felt on this occasion with all people from all walks of life and reps of other organizations coming forward and participating ! I have been emphasizing this since over a year now that even if there are multiple organizations, there is no need to maintain any hostility or competition and all should participate in all functions !

The quality of programs, however, looked like, was a bit overlooked and did n’t seem to be appealing enough to keep at least a reasonable section of the audience seated until the end of the program, which was altogether only about 3 hours ending still early in the day at 07.30 pm. This was actually the comments by several friends. There was a severe lag felt throughout and a good live MC would have helped significantly to diffuse this. All the items were definitely good, but a KANJ program should have been outstanding instead of being just another ordinary program. It was like “OK, here, we all came, had a good feast, socialized and now what !”. Many left after the meeting, and more left after the coffee break and very few remained towards the end of the program. Looks like many had just obliged to buy tickets, come and leave, just to show their support. That itself was great though !

The Executive Committee members and conveners all worked so very hard, it would have been nice to call them all up on the stage, introduced, honored and recognized which is extremely important but unfortunately did n’t happen.

A highlight of this program was that Sunil Tristar got honored on stage and recognized. He is one of the oldest and greatest supporters of KANJ and Malayalee community in general. It was indeed a very deserving honor, though long over due !

The video wall was of course very appealing with the right amount of lighting and live camera. However, there seemed to be a lack of coordination between the video wall projection and the programs going on stage, at times.

The auditorium, seating, stage. lighting, sound, etc. were all very good.

I was back stage during the meeting and could not listen to most of the speeches clearly due heavy echo and so I am not able to comment on them.

Overall, the program was very good, went very well and the organizers definitely did a good job ! Kudos !

Long live our KANJ !

J Panicker