GAMA REPORTER Issue 2013-01 Reporter GAMA editorial board is inviting materials for publishing in the newsletter Send your articles to [email protected]JUNE 2013 IN THIS ISSUE Dear GAMA Members, Let me begin by saying how proud I am about the GAMA team and the community volunteers who work behind the scenes to make the GAMA events a success. The Malayalee community in and around Austin has been leading by example when it comes to organizing events which revels professionally managed events! More than anything, we remain united as a community even when we are witnessing massive growth in the community. While new members enthusiastically get involved in the GAMA events, the old timers remain passionate about their commitment to the community and the organization they nurtured. These are really exciting times! We are only about half way through the year, but GAMA team was able to accomplish so much in so little time. GAMA continued the year-long Malayalam classes started last year, kids have begun to read basic Malayalam stories now. For the batch we started in 2012 have completed one full year of instruction now; the current plan is to continue the batch till the end of this year. We started new batch of Malayalam class in June. Roughly 30 students have enrolled in the new batch. All in all, we have 4 classes running concurrently. This would not have been possible without the committed volunteers who have devoted their personal time. The movie committee has been keeping themselves very busy; so far they have managed to screen three Malayalam movies in digital format in a good theater. Audience loved the quality of the movie print, the sound system and the theater ambiance. At this rate, we will be breaking another GAMA record for the number of movies screened in a year! On a closing note, I would like to personally thank each and every one of you who took the time off from your busy schedules to volunteer for the community. Your skills, talents and efforts made the difference in making GAMA more efficient and professional level organization! I look forward to working with many of you through the year. I hope to continue this momentum and also hope you will continue to offer your full support as in the past SaReGAMA 2013 Pictures from our picnic, May, 2013. Kathakali By Shruthi Nampoothiri. Rationkada Balyakalasmaranakal by Jane Joseph. Aval Malayalam Poem by Sreevidhya Ajayan. Essays from Competition Winning Essays from SareGAMA Competition Springfest 2013 Report and pictures on our picnic Message from President by Animon Jose
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
GAMA REPORTER Issue 2013-01
Reporter
GAMA editorial board is inviting materials for publishing in the
Let me begin by saying how proud I am about the GAMA team and the community volunteers who work behind the scenes to make the GAMA events a success. The Malayalee community in and around Austin has been leading by example when it comes to organizing events which revels professionally managed events! More than anything, we remain united as a community even when we are witnessing massive growth in the community. While new members enthusiastically get involved in the GAMA events, the old timers remain passionate about their commitment to the community and the organization they nurtured. These are really exciting times!
We are only about half way through the year, but GAMA team was able to accomplish so much in so little time.
GAMA continued the year-long Malayalam classes started last year, kids have begun to read basic Malayalam stories now. For the batch we started in 2012 have completed one full year of instruction now; the current plan
is to continue the batch till the end of this year. We started new batch of Malayalam class in June. Roughly 30 students have enrolled in the new batch. All in all, we have 4 classes running concurrently. This would not have been possible without the committed volunteers who have devoted their personal time.
The movie committee has been keeping themselves very busy; so far they have managed to screen three Malayalam movies in digital format in a good theater. Audience loved the quality of the movie print, the sound system and the theater ambiance. At this rate, we will be breaking another GAMA record for the number of movies screened in a year!
On a closing note, I would like to personally thank each and every one of you who took the time off from your busy schedules to volunteer for the community. Your skills, talents and efforts made the difference in making GAMA more efficient and professional level organization! I look forward to working with many of you through the year. I hope to continue this momentum and also hope you will continue to offer your full support as in the past
SaReGAMA 2013 Pictures from our picnic, May, 2013.
Kathakali
By Shruthi Nampoothiri.
Rationkada
Balyakalasmaranakal by Jane Joseph.
Aval
Malayalam Poem by Sreevidhya Ajayan.
Essays from Competition Winning Essays from SareGAMA Competition
It was a very sad day. I was the first leaf to fall from our tree. May be if I had done my job better the tree wouldn’t have set me loose first. It’s too late, anyway.
I was a little sad for a while, but then I felt excitement take over. I could feel the wind as I plummeted towards the ground. I was thrilled. I could feel momentum picking up. Then as fast as it happened, it stopped.
As I touched the ground I felt weak. It was all over. Sadness washed over me again. Soon, I would blow away. I was too sad. I said farewell to my fellow leaves in the tree. I wished them luck and I blew away. When I landed I was in a totally new place. It looked like the perfect place for my life to end. Soon, I was picked up and put in what seemed like a collection. I saw dozens of other leaves, and now I’m happy again.
Jane, her husband Sanjesh & their daughter Ashlin moved to Austin in 2012 and lives in Cedarpark.
GAMA REPORTER | Issue 2013-01 5
Fun & Spirited competitions
A FUN DAY AT THE PARK
We saw record number of people attending the annual picnic - SpringFest 2013. It was a picture perfect day at the scenic San Gabriel Park. Kids ran along the river banks while parents and adults found themselves engaged in interesting conversations. Newcomers got an opportunity to meet and make new friends while the veterans got a chance to renew their friendship. Kids formed a beeline for getting their faces artistically painted by the talented artists while some others burned their extra energy in the bouncy house. Various games like lemon spoon run and sack race kept the kids and adults on their toes. The highly anticipated Dessert Competition attracted many interesting entries. Once the desserts were opened up for public, it appeared to have vanished in to thin air! The food which was prepared with the help of many community volunteers was enthusiastically devoured by everyone, people couldn't stop praising the morning special Kappa and chutney!
PICNIC HIGHLIGHTS
Kerala & Texas Foods
Competitions & Prizes
WINNERS
Candy Picking
1. Emily Joseph
2. Ankita Anup
3. Mia Antony
Lemon & Spoon Race
Ladies
1. Mini Aloysius
2. Beena James
3. Smitha Anup
Girls
1. Shruti Ramachandran
2. Neha Raji
3. Rhea Jefhi
Boys
1. Samuel James
2. Aditya Satesh
3. Alwyn
WINNERS
Dessert competition
1. Deepa Sethumadhavan
Sack Race
Youth
1. Maya
2. Priyanka
3. Riya
Kids
1. Melvin K
2. Samuel
3. Anu
Gents
1. Bijoy
2. Jesu
3. Antony
Musical Chair
Kids
1. Emily
2. Ann
3. Leah
Youth
1. Priyanka
2. Samuel
3. Melvin K
Ladies
1. Bini Nampoothiri
2. Mini Thomas
3. Lekha
Gents
1. Jesu
2. Simson
3. Mike Punjabi
GAMA REPORTER | Issue 2013-01 6
We need your help in improving the quality of our News Letter. If you can volunteer please let us know.
We also need a lot of articles.
A Poem or a Short story would be great.
But...
It doesn't have to be the typical articles you see in News Letters. It could be anything publishable.
We accept even two sentences of writing.
Send a letter to the Editor with your comments on any relevant subject.
Send us a joke. (Must be original, though)
Your opinion about a recent Austin event.
A write up on an event at your school.
A Drawing or a painting.
If you know someone who can shed some light about our past or history or can provide some advice to the community, feel free to do an interview or prepare a profile about them and send it to us. Please make sure, you get their approval first.
Any other ideas you may have.
Oh. Btw, the editorial board reserves the right to reject any matter without providing an explanation.
Please send your materials to be published to [email protected] at the earliest so that we can include it in our next issue.
Sreevidhya Ajayan
GAMA REPORTER Issue 2013-01
Mrs.Saraswathi Nagarajan was really tired after judging the show for nearly four hours and was ready to leave. She smiled and thanked me before started slowly walking towards her daughter, but then she turned around as if a sudden thought occurred to her. “I never expected such talent in Austin” she said, “The quality of the programs just amazed me, especially the diction of the kids was superb”
The Brentwood Christian School PAC was one of the finest venues where SaReGAMA was held in recent times. Ample seating and walkways, big stage with state-of-the-art lighting made it a pleasant experience for the participants as well as audience. The entries for the drawing competition was displayed at the lobby, people stopped by the display stand to appreciate the budding artists before proceeding to the auditorium.
The four judges, who gracefully volunteered to judge the competition, arrived before time to give themselves enough time to settle down and meet and greet each other. Two were returning judges from last year: Kannan Radhakrishnan and Madhu Kalyanapuram, and two new judges: Mrs. Saraswathi Nagarajan and Vidhya Mani. The programs started on time with opening prayer by Anupriya Jose and Megan Varghese. Preethy Sajeev Pynadath was the MC who skillfully guided the entire program for the next four hours. The first set of competitions started immediately after the judges inaugurated program by lighting the lamp.
More than 70 people participated in competition and non-competition items; competition was tough and participants set real high standards. Program started with Solo Dance competition for kids between ages 9 to 13, followed by Solo Music competition for Ages 9 to 13. Couple of non-competitive items later, highlight was the children’s skit “Doctor, Doctor” organized by Babu Chandrashekhar, competitive items restarted. Audience was in for a treat when Fancy Dress competition started: The kutty chendakkaran by Joshua, chekavar by Jayanth and Emily Joseph’s Ann Frank were all well received by the audience. Merina Joseph was the winner of this category with a superb enactment of “Meenkari“ with real fish in her hand!
Aparna Rajeev proved how good a dancer she is with her superb rendition of Thillana in Kuchipudi tradition. Bini Nampoothiri choreographed the finale piece with group of kids and few surprise guest dancers!
Apart from the regular stage competitions, GAMA introduced two additional competitions this year: Essay and Drawing competitions. Essay competitions attracted 12 entries, judges found it difficult to pick a winner in most categories. Amy Adams, Krishna Kumar, Hari Mony, and Mannisha Binu were the judges for Essay competition while Prasanth Vijayan and Sreedevi Nair judged the Drawing competition.
All participants were given a medal as a token of appreciation for the efforts they put in and all stage event winners were given cash awards! Sijo Vadakkan of Trinity Real Estate sponsored the cash awards.
SaReGAMA 2013: A perfect storm of talents!
by Animon Jose
GAMA REPORTER | Issue 2013-01 8
2013 SaReGAMA Winners
Category Winner(s)
Solo Dance (Age Group: 9 to 13) Shaili Mehta
Solo Song (Age Group: 9 to 13) Anupriya Jose
Group Dance (Age Group: Under 13) Avni Singh, Anmol Mittal, Akshaya Ranjit, Neha Sangana, Advika Sharma, Avantika Tikoo, Samstita Raja
Malayalam Class. The extensive variety of games, tests, translations and assignments make sure that Malayalam never gets boring. The first thing we did on the first day of our class was to learn how to spell മലയഺളം. Then we got on to
learning small words & by doing that we started learning the alphabets. The coolest thing that we do now is to complete the story for our reading assignments. The class is splits between Team A & Team B. Every week it’s the race to make the most points so that your team wins the weekly contests. This is one of the things that make Malayalam class so captivating & enthralling. The only fun thing we haven't done so far is to read Mayavi & Luttapi stories.
Malayalam class not only provides an excellent opportunity to learn Malayalam but also educates about India culture, civilization, leaders etc. by sending a writing assignment in which you have to write about the topic's life or achievements. One example is this week’s topic. This week’s topic is Sri Narayana Guru. What most kids will do next is go to Wikipedia and write in Malayalam or English about Sri Narayana Guru's life and achievements. In Malayalam class, we also learn about the stunning history of India. In all, I think Malayalam class has many qualities for kids like me whose parents were born in India and their kids were born in America by helping the kids learn about Indian History.
Malayalam class not only tests us (the students), but the teachers of it also rewards us. After the first quarter test, we had a party at Main Event. I remember that the teachers put a lot of effort to make it happen.
I look back and also remember that some kids used to pronounce letters like Tta (റ്റ) and Ra(റ)
as Zha (ഴ ) .Now all of those kids are speaking like
Malayalam was their native language. I think the teachers were responsible for this. They put a lot of effort into making sure we always get something out of the classes. I used to add Tamil words half the time I spoke Malayalam! Now I speak pretty regularly but still mix it up once in a while. Malayalam class is also very helpful because when I go to India almost every year, I can converse naturally with the Milk Man and all the neighbors in the tiny village of Tharakkad in Palakkad, and the other village of Trikkur in Thrichur.
I also think Malayalam Class teachers need to read more poems to us. I always love the way Malayalam poems sound. They are mystical and obvious and beautiful all at the same time.
In all Malayalam Class is very educational and interesting at the same time. I hope it goes on for decades like this for kids like me. May be one day I will get to teach the class as well.