Dubai Tamil Ladies Association
Past Events


Latest Happenings at TLA...

Kalai Vizha,Feb 5th

On February 5th we had organised a Kalai Vizha where some of our members participated. The programme was held at the Utsav Hall of India club. We planned to start the programme on time but certain things went beyond our control like setting up the mike and putting up the banner which arrived late. So at the outset we would like to apologize to the members regarding the delay in starting the programme. We appreciate all the members who made it on time .
The programme started with a group of 5 ladies who sang Tirupugazh in unison. A lot of credit goes to these ladies who since a year have formed this group and are training to sing devotional songs under the guidance of Mrs. Janakasudha Srinivasan and honing their singing skills. This was their maiden appearance on stage and we wish them All The Best and we are sure there will be many more such opportunities for them to perform in the near future. The participants were:
Mrs. Janakasudha Srinivasan,
Mrs. Vidhya Srinivasan,
Mrs. Rama Ramani,
Mrs. Kausalya Sridhar and
Mrs. Uma Venkatesh.
Keep up the good work ladies.
The next participant was Mrs. Prema Umamaheswaran who came up on stage after a very long gap but sang with confidence.
The next participant was Mrs. Sheela Balasubramanium. She too came up on stage after a gap of 8 years and sang with gusto and vigor.
continued
All these participants were accompanied on the violin by Mrs.Vishal Shankar a very talented and a reputed teacher teaching Carnatic classical music and violin to many students in Dubai.
Mr. Krishnarajan accompanied the artists on the mridangam. Mr. Rajan is one of the foremost players in Chennai and now in Dubai. He has accompanied many stalwarts like Dr. N. Ramani, Sri T.N. Seshagopalan, Smt. Mala Chandrashekar and many others. We the committee members thank Mr. Rajan whole heartedly for being so gracious enough to come forward and play the mridangam for our members. Thank You Mr. Krishna Rajan.
The last item of the evening was a dance recital by Smt. Meera Srikanth who has been learning Bharatnatyam for the last 15 years. All the items rendered by her were the compositions of her guru Natyacharya Sri. Arvind and Smt. Vasantha Arvind. Meera has performed in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu. Thanks to the children who were quite and engrossed in the dance programme. Meera kept the audience glued to their chair.
We thank all the participants for putting up a good show and keeping up to the expectations of the TLA audience.
Then it was time for the February born lady members to don the birthday caps and come forward and cut the delicious and spongy cake. The members were ----
Mrs. Jayanthi Govindarajan,
Mrs. Girija Muralidharan and
Mrs. Vijaya Mohan.
After the cake cutting ceremony hot baturas and mouth watering chana was served to all the members and the guests.
The members and guests were given gift hampers sponsored by Dabur and once again 1kg oil bottle sponsored by United Foods. We thank Dabur and United Foods for being our sponsors. The members left after enjoying an interesting evening of music and dance.

Pongal celebrations,January 17th

On January 17th we had the Pongal celebrations at the Party hall of Saleh bin Lahej building. We Thank Sharada Rajamani for organising the hall.

Welcome address was given by Vijaya Mohan. Prema Umamaheshwaran started the programme with a prayer song. Then Girija Muralidharan took over and briefed the members about the past programmes. She spoke about being invited by Kairali Kala Kendram to perform a dance number for their 25th anniversary programme. A vote of thanks was given to Sridevi Viswanathan who selected the music and initiated the choreography of the dance and then handed over the responsibility to Meera Srikant. All the participants and their parents were thanked. A trophy was handed over by Vijaya Mohan and Meenakshi Gandhi to Mr. Chandran who made the Ratham, Kavdi, Karagam and other things.

Mr. Manickavasakam came forward and recited a poem befitting the Pongal celebrations.

The highlight of the evening was an hours mimicry show by Mr. Rajaram. Rajaram is working with the Landmark group of companies. As soon as he started the chatter and the noise all around stopped and there was pindrop silence. The children and all the elders were listening with rapt attention and were spell bound with his non stop mimcry of film personalities, politicians and other interesting people. Good show, which was well appreciated by everybody. Keep it up Mr. Rajaram .

In appreciation of the member who came punctually at the given time we gave her an Al-Kabeer gift voucher, and the winner was Mrs. Kamala Nagarajan.

The Rangoli artists Srividhya Srinivasan and Kausalya Sridhar who had done a wonderful job with the coloured powder with the symbol of the main sponsors Al-Kabeer on the floor was eye catching and beautiful. Uma Gurunathan came up with a brilliant idea of reproducing the Pongal atmosphere with the traditional and beautifully designed mud pot in which Pongal is prepared. The milk symbolically boiling over the rim of the pot was so natural and mouth watering that we almost felt like tasting the sweet dish.

The decoration was authentic and well appreciated by one and all. All the three members were given a gift voucher each.

A game of Bingo was played and the winners were Sumathi Shankar, Shobana Ravishankar, Srinidhi Swaminathan, Vignesh Ramesh, Meera Ramesh and Mr. Sriram. All of them were given gift vouchers by Mr. Srinivasan from Al-Kabeer. We extend our heart felt thanks to Sharada Nandakumar for organising to sponsor this programme.

A surprise gesture from the committee members was to make the January born members to come forward and cut a huge cake. Colorful crowns were placed on their heads and the Birthday girls came forward to cut the cake all smiles and blushing. The ladies felt great to have their birthdays celebrated in a big way and thoroughly enjoyed the limelight and the nice way it was organised. The soft spongy cake melted in the mouth. There was a huge demand from all the children. The cakes were cut and distributed by Lata Shekar, Meenakshi Gandhi and Prema Umamaheshwaran.

The members who celebrated their birthday in the month of January were--

Mrs. Baby Kanchana Elango,
Mrs. Geetha Thyagarajan,
Mrs. Jayashree Vasudevan,
Mrs. Geetha Venkatesh,
Mrs. Jaya Krishnamoorthy and
Mrs. Maheswari Rajan Babu, whose birthday was on that day itself, was given a small gift.

We plan to celebrate every month in the same way and hope all the members to be present so that they do not miss this opportunity.

Food packets were catered from Woodlands and handed over to the members before they left.

Oil bottles were handed over to the members. We thank Mr. Ajmal of United Food for sponsoring the oil.
Few young girls volunteered to come forward and help the committee members. They are Vaishnavi, Rohini, Arti, Divya and Priya Sriram. We need more such persons during our future programmes. Thank you girls.

You can go to our site and see the photographs taken during Picnic, Kairali dance programme and the Pongal celebrations.

On the 18th Indian Association celebrated the Pongal festival at the Al-Aweer grounds. There was a raffle draw by the Xpress Money Service and our members Latha Srinivasan and Priya Sriram won a wrist watch.

Performance at the Al-Nasser Leisure Land for the Kairali Kala Kendram

Our association was invited by Kairali Kala Kendram to put up a dance number for their 25th anniversary function which took place on Friday the 11th January at Al-Nasser Leisure land.

This dance and music was selected by Mrs. Sridevi Viswanathan and later choreographed by Mrs. Meera Srikanth, a very talented Bharatanatyam dancer who is trained under the tutelage of Sri Aravindan of Kalakshetra, Chennai.

It was coordinated by Meenakshi Gandhi, Latha Sekar and Sujata Sunderrajan.
We take this opportunity to profusely thank Mr. Khairuddin, Administration Manager of Al-Kabeer who was gracious enough to allow his house in Bur-Dubai to be used for the dance practice.

Our Sincere thanks goes to Mr. Chandran who took a lot of interest and spent time and energy since last one and a half months to make the beautiful Radham with Lord Murugan inside, Karagam, Kavadi, Umbrella, Vel, Nadaswarams and Tavil. All these items looked spectacular and were the highlight of the evening.
The participants were:

BHARATNATYAM:
DIVYA GUNASHEKARAN
ROHINI SUBBAIAN
VINITRA K RANGAN
SINDHUJA SUNDERRAJAN
SHALINI SEKAR
AARTI ELANGO
VAISHNAVI SWAMINATHAN.

KARAGAM:
DIPTI SUBRAMANIAN
ARUL PRIYA MANICKAVASAKAN
INDHU PATHMANATHAN
SHYAMALA GANDHI
GAYATHRI ELANGO
DHANUJHA GANDHI
BRINDHA MANIKAVASAKAN

KAVADI:
SIDDARTH SUNDERRAJAN
DINESH GUNASHEKARAN
KARTICK SRIRAM

CHARIOTEER:
MR. GANDHI.
MR. SUBRAMANIAM.
MR. GUNASEKAR.
MR. KANNAN.

NADASWARAM:
SATISH SHEKAR.
MR. CHANDRAN.
MR. ELANGO.
MR. PATHMANATHAN

PEOPLE IN THE PROCESSION :
MR. SRIRAM.
BHARATH GURUNATHAN.
VIGNESH SRIRAM.
S. VENKATACHALAM.
MR. RANGA SUBRAMANIAM.

LADIES:
DEEPA SUBRAMANIAM.
MEENAKSHI GANDHI.
DR. USHA SURESH.
USHA SRIRAM.
BABY KANCHANA ELANGO.
TEJASWARI GANDHI.

CHILDREN:
DIVYA SUBBAIAN
DIPIKA SHANKAR
SREENIDHI SWAMINATHAN
KRITHIKA SURESH
SHRUTHI SURESH
P L RAMACHANDRAN
SUBASHINI ELANGO
SHRIYA VAIDHYANATHAN
WE SINCERELY THANK ALL THE PARENTS WHO CAME FORWARD, CO-OPERATED AND HELPED US PUT UP THIS DANCE.

Annual TLA Picnic on 21st December,Mamzar Park

On December 21st Tamil Ladies Association had organised a picnic cum sports day at Al Mamzar park. The committee members were there ahead of time waiting for the members to arrive.
The day turned out to be very pleasant with the bright sunlight and gentle breeze blowing . Our special thanks should go to Mr. Sarfaraz Sheikh HRD manager of Al Futtaim Electronics Toshiba who was the right person to help us select the venue for our picnic. We wanted a big green patch of land with the toilets and cafeteria near by. The committee members made two trips to the park along with Mr. Sarfaraz Sheikh to select the appropriate setting for the picnic. We chose the lovely sea facing spot where we had enough shade and benches. Mr. Sheikh was kind enough to reach the said spot early morning and reserve the place for us. He left as soon as the committee members arrived. Once again we extend our thanks to Mr. Sheikh.
We had planned some games for the children and the adult members. Except for a few members and their families no body was on time. Hence all the activities started late. We request all the members to be on time from the next programme so that we can go according to the plan.

The games began with a running race for the tiny tots under 4 years. The winners were Sruthi Veeraraghavan and Nivedha Srinivasan.
Ages 48, Filling the sand in the cups with a spoon.
Winners were Vishvak Kannan and Shrita Bhaskar.

Ages 9-----12, Needle and thread for girls.
Winner---Rohini Subbaiyyan.

Ages 9-----12, Back walking for boys.
Winner----Vignesh Shankar.

Ages 13----19 Langdi for boys.
Winner-Arjun Sreenivasan.

Ages-13------19, Langdi for girls.
Winner---Lalitha Venkataraman.

Three legged race for couples.
Winners----1st prize----Kousalya and Sridhar.
--2nd prize----Janakasudha and Srinivasan.

Here we have to appreciate the sporting way in which the couples took part in the race. It was a pleasure to see quite a lot of couples who came forward to participate. Keep up the spirits and come forward in droves in future programmes.
The piping hot delicious lunch was served around 1.30. The food was great and sumptuous.

Then by popular demand there was an impromptu game of Antakshri which was good.
After that we had a round of bingo where MR. Umamaheswaran pitched in to help the Committee Members which was enjoyed by the young and old alike.

Around 4p.m. the mouth watering aroma of the fried items started wafting around and the hot snacks of spring rolls and spinach cutlets with sauce which were provided by Al Kabeer disappeared in moments. Every body loved it. Our Sincere thanks to Mrs. Sharadha Nandakumar for organising the Al-Kabeer snacks.
It was now time to say Goodbye to one another. Before leaving every lady member was given 2 bottles (1kg each)of Nawar Sun Flower cooking oil. We thank Mr.Ajmal of United Foods for sponsoring the oil.

The picnic event came to an end with everybody going home contended and happy of having spent the day with their families and friends in the nice open atmosphere of Al Mamzar park. The photographs will be put on site very soon.
Mr. Gandhi, Mr. Mohan and Mr. Muralidharan require special thanks for being present ahead of time, helping with the logistics throughout the day.
We Thank Mr. Fernandes of Emirates Pure drinking water for sponsoring the water cartons.
Thanks are also due to all other persons who helped us make this a great picnic to remember

Diwali Celebrations

Diwali, the festival of lights, conjures up a vision of traditional diyas, colourful rangolis, new clothes, and luscious delicacies. With the light of a diya and a dash of rangoli, Diwali lights a blaze and leaves a spark of joy in every heart. Diwali, perhaps the most well-known of the Indian festivals, was celebrated by the Association on 2nd November 2001 at the Dubai Grand Hotel.

The members started pouring in right from 7.00 onwards.Each member was gifted the Diwali gift along with a very useful list of all members and their contact numbers.
Also this time as per the creative idea of Mr. Muralidharan,members & their family were handed out sticker labels to put down their first names and stick them on to themselves to help them know each other.Here we would like to add that the Association is growing so fast that we now
boast of a member list of 109!!

After the gifts were collected the members were directed to the banquet hall where the programme for the evening was to take place.THe hall was gaily decorated with festoons and balloons.
At first the children were entertained by a magic show by DJ of the evening Mr. Jose, and then followed by games.The children throughlly enjoyed themselves.

The highlight of the evening was the Bhangra dance,which much to our amazement was so popular amidst out members and their children that they could not stop themselves from shaking a leg.4 Bhangra dancers,2 men and 2 ladies performed very graceful dances to the popular songs like
"Makana","oye Hoye".Soon the children enthusiatically joined in and there was an aura of gaiety all around so much that the children had to be requested to sit down until the performers of the evening were done!

The starters were served to the members in the mean while and the banquet hall was jam packed even before the programme began.
We take this oppurtunity to thank all you members for being
co-operative and enthusiastic and thus making our event a resounding success.

As the dancers along with the children danced to the beats of bhangra the evening was heading towards dinner time.Luscious buffet was served one for ladies and children and another for the husbands who too deserve to be alone for a while.The sumptuous dinner was followed by the ever
popular dessert- ice-creams and gulab jamuns..Yumm!!!For those who couldnt attend the event you people missed something for sure;)

After the nice dinner the members were requested to relax once again and watch a light musical and dance programme.
As the night unfolded the members slowly wound up for the day holding in their hearts an experience of a delightful evening.The children however went on tirelessly to the music and kept the show alive even after the performers had left for the day.

Just as we,the committee members were flopping into the chairs after the tireful yet satisfying evening,the Hotel staff was extremely caring to offer us a cup of hot coffee that rejuvenated us:)
We take this oppurtunity to thank the hotel staff for their help for the evening and special thanks to Mr. Valerian Lobo,Banquet manager.

Once again we thank our generous sponsors for the event Nalli's Silks Sari Traders L.C.C, Sampat Jewellers,Balmer Lawrie,Karama Medical Clinic!!3 cheers to them.
We would also like to thank our committee member Mrs.Prema umamaheshwar for bringing in the sponsorship of Balmer Lawrie.

And all u wonderful members for your appreciative words from how touched you were with the serene gift to how full you were with the heavy dinner.Last but not the least the committee members who are the backbone of this event and who took care of every small detail to make the evening a success

Navrathri celebrations-held on the 12th of October.

We thank the members who turned in almost full attendence on that day.For those few who could not attend the function just a brief about it.
We, the committee members organised the traditional kolu with 9 glorious steps with beautiful dolls,the traditional kalasam,three plates holding colourful rangoli having the reigning deity Lakshmi,Saraswati, and Durga kept inside.Traditional lamps were lit.As done in every household of Tamilnadu we created the park with the beautiful animal kingdom placed inside and a waterfall flowing.
Then the team made the rangoli on a black canvas the picture of our ever mischievous Krishna eating the butter and beautiful peacock dancing next to Him.
The function started at around 7 p.m. here the committee members have a request to make. There are always a few members who always make it a point to come on time. This time the golden question was asked by one of our member's husband "why couldnt we start at the correct time?" As we are waiting for the majority of our members the programme invariably begins late. As we have realised that we are not being fair to the members who are always on time, we have decided to start our next programme at the announced time.So the members are requested to make a note of this change for the better performance and good image of our association.We the committee members are available at the venue one hour prior to the programme so if all you will give us the support let us start and finish at the correct time.
Mrs. Vijaya Mohan first explained the significance of navrathri and and then the children started performing.
We were really amazed to see so many enthusiastic children performing.They sang traditional carnatic songs and bajans,slokams and enacted small skits and various children decked up in their finery depicted their characters beautifully.
We had the fortune to see pious persons like shankaracharya and andal and the modern characters like mowgli,modern robot with all the lights flashing. Kudos to the kids. We thank each and every one of the participants as this place is not enough to mention them by their names we thank them here collectively.Eventually the children who were feeling shy to come on the stage and perform also came out of their shell and literally there was a queue to go on the stage. Nothing else gives us the pleasure than this act from our kids.
Everyone of you appreciated our efforts that day. Some of the beautiful comments we received that day was "kallakkitingo! You people have made our children to go in the traditional way that here after wards where ever we go they will definitely sing and appreciate our tradition." Yes, that is what we have been aiming to promote. Our country has a great heritage ,culture and tradition.It is our duty to inculcate them in our children. This is our small and humble contribution.We thank each and everyone of you for the encouraging words. This is the energy tonic to conduct the forth coming events with much gusto.
Then certificates were distributed for the winners of the cookery competition.Former president Mrs.Sharada Nandakumar requested the committee members to look for sponsors so that all the participants could be given some sort of gifts as a token of appreciation.Her suggestion is well taken in to account but at the same time members are also requested to take the competitions in the correct competitive spirit and participate.
Finally the traditional vetthalai pakku was distributed to the members and everyone dispersed with wonderful feelings.
We thank the Indian sports club for their wonderful support.We take this wonderful opportunity to convey our heartfelt gratitude to Mr and Mrs.Sudha venkatesan for giving us their magnificent kolu padi.
We thank our sponsors for our evening the one and only Nalli Silks.As the treasurer in our committee and sponsors for that evening Mrs.Meenakshi Gandhi went beyond her limits to make this event a grand success.

Cookery Competition

Cookery Competition held on 25th September -judged by Sous-Chef of Jumeirah Beach Club,Mr. Pawan Jain

The programme started off with a prayer song by our new talented member,Mrs.Sheela Balasubramanian.
As usual our President Mrs. Vijaya Mohan gave the welcome speech.Then our General Secretary Mrs. Girija Muralidharan updated the events which took place in the months of July and August.We the committee members first would like to thank all the participants for their hard work and their cooperation.

There were a total of fifteen entries for the cookery competition.We had the good fortune of having a competent judge for the cookery competition.Mr.Pawan Jain,Sous chef,
of The Jumeirah Beach Club,kindly accepted our invitation and graced the occasion with his wife Mrs.Komal Jain.Mr.Pawan proved himself to be a thorough professional by first going through all the items which the participants had prepared, and then consulting with the committee members with all his suggestions to which we agreed whole-heartedly.

Then he started the whole procedure of tasting the items one by one savouring each delicacy and the detailed versions of how each one is prepared by the participants themselves.

We received many kudos for this novel way of letting the participants themselves describe their work.We thank each one of them personally through this column.

Then came the hard task of announcing the winners.This again was made easy for us as Mr.Pawan himself came forward and announced the winners in each category. He further more made our task easier by clearly telling about each item and explaining the taste and the creative way in which each of the contestants had decorated and why he choose a particular item as the winner.

The winners are
Chettinad Style :Mrs. Sharada Rajamani.
Madurai Style :Mrs. Uma Gurunathan
Tanjore Style :Mrs. Anuradha Mahesh
Tirunelveli Style :Mrs.Meenakumari Padmanathan and Mrs. Meera Srikanth.
As u would have noticed we have given five prizes already. but the surprise of the day was the introduction of yet another prize as the over all best.This prize went to our member Mrs.Sharada Nandakumar. She has done a creative and authentic way of decorating her item,which made Mr.Pawan to
to give the over all best award.

Congrats to all the winners and to all the participants too. You will be pleased to note this committee takes a lot of pain to please everyone but it is beyond our efforts to give prizes to everyone who has participated. Hope the members understand our plight too.

The members Tamil Ladies Association tales great pleasure in thanking Mr.Pawan and Mrs.komal Jain for accepting our invitation and and making it an beautiful event by their graceful presence.We must thank our member Mrs. Sudha Venkatesans daughter,Miss. Karthika Venkatesan for entertaining our members with her sweet voice.The girl has a divine voice and we all take this opportunity to bless her to achieve many more laurels.
We thank immensely the AL TAAWON Priniting Press for their sponsporship.
We thank Madhura sweets for distributing the sweet and savoury items to the members.
We do not have enough words to thank our member Mrs.Geetha Chidambaram for arranging the beautiful hall. The hall turned out to be a majestic one for holding such
an event. The committee members once again whole heartedly convey their gratitude to her.

Medical Talk by Dr. Mrs. Janaki Gopalan

In June,We had the privilege of having Dr. Mrs.Janaki Gopalan giving us a lecture demonstration covering all the ailments of women starting from teenage problem to menopause and beyond .
It was a treat to have this highly qualified lady doctor as the event turned to be an eye opener in the above mentioned issues. The demonstration turned out to be a high tech one with the dr , having all the topics displayed in the projector screen and done very much as a marketing seminar. So it was very much helpful for the ladies gathered to take down the notes and after that we all had 30 minutes time to air our queries.
All in all a informative and educative and enjoyable programme.
If the members are interested we willing to conduct the same again as the turn out for the event was less and as this is in the interest of increasing health awareness the dr ia also kind enough to come again provided you all will turn in full strength.

The event came to an end with the committee members presenting a small token of our appreciation. We all join together once again to thank Mrs.Janaki Gopalan.
We extend our heart felt gratitude to our member Mrs. Shanta Srinivasan who went beyond herself to help us in providing the party hall in their Almaskan building on june 10th to hold the medical seminar.

The office bearers of our association were invited to attend the talk given by the home minister MR. L.k.Advani on august 2nd. .Mrs vijaya Mohan, Mrs. Sridevi Vishwanathan ,Mrs Meenakshi Gandhi and Mrs.Latha Sekar attended the same.All the president of the association were introduced to him by our consul general.
The home minister gave an eloquent speech stressing on our unity and appreciated the efforts of n.r.is and said our mother land is now being recognised by our N.R.I population.
Our parent association invited us to participate in the onam festivities being held in the alnasr ice rink on 31st of august.

We presented a karagattam and a tamil kummi song.
Our effort was very well recognised and applauded by Indian association. The committee members and the parents and the kids who participated turned home with beautiful memories of the procession and the whole event.
We thank Indian Association for inviting us and giving us the chance to participate in the prestigious event.
The same karagattam was presented in Ajman jewel palace auditorium as we were asked to represent DALA ON 7TH SEPT

Quiz Programme

Thanks to U all the Quiz Programme organised by the new committee on the 25th of May,was an astounding success.
We all had a wonderful evening on the day of our quiz programme. For those who did not attend it here are the details.

The Quiz programme held the rapt attention of the entire members and their families.Amidst the fun and laughter,all were putting their heads together to crack the answers.
There were prizes galore of 25 prizes being distributed. To make the quiz programme more interesting initially we gave them 50 questions and mrs. Girija muralidharan asked the questions in English and mrs. Meenakshi Gandhi translated them in tamil.
It went rapidly as gun shots. We choose the first 10 high scorers. Even though the committee members' kids joined the show for the fun of it we did not compete for the prizes even though only mr and mrs. Girija muralidharan were the only members who knew the questions.
While mr.muralidharan was correcting the papers the audience were treated to 15 more spot questions and we distributed 15 prizs then and there.
The 10 winners were then separated in to 2 groups of five and asked 10 more very difficult questions.This was then corrected and all 10 of them were given fabulous prizes.
Every one was so happy and mr.raman came forward all by himself and spoke very highly about the committee's hard work and enthusiasm. It gave us also tremendous
boost to our confidence.

Our first Event ...

The first event of the new Committee was the family get-together.
This was held at Sharadha Rajamani's place.
All the committee members were introduced to the members and also for the first time the members also had the opportunity to introduce themselves and also their family.
Sumptous dinner was arranged from Amba.
Hoping for a still better events to come!:)



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