Another great milestone by the Tamilnadu Engineers Forum (TEF). TEF conducted one of the largest cultural event in Kuwait exclusively for its members and their families. A full day cultural Programme 'Kodai Vizha 2010 - Kalaigalin Sanagam' (Conglomeration of Culture ....) was conducted on the 14th day of May 2010 , Saturday at The Cambridge English School . Record number of participants from kids to adults of various ages displayed their talents and skills to the huge crowd of audience in this Kodai Vizha event. A healthy competition is a great way to build confidence, appreciate talent, and help to create new innovative ideas, while contributing to life growth. This year, there were been many wonderful & creative competitions and programs that entertained the huge crowd throughout the full day. The days event started with Tamil Thai Vazhthu by our TEF family Children Madumitha Bascarane, Sushmita Bascarane and Lavanya Jeyakumar and the competition began with a wonderful fancy dress competition for the Children . The bright, airy room was filled with colour. There were about thirty children, dressed up in creative costumes. There were many pretty fairies and graceful characters and brave superheroes. However, two of the costumes and the presentation really stood out from the rest were ones won by Sanjay Kasi came as the First Prize winner and Srinithi Rajagopal came as the Second Prize Winner. Next was one of the most energetic Group Dance competition with Artistic props, dashing costumes, sprightly moves and oodles of energy. Several groups participated in the Juniors and Seniors Category Dance competition . The Juniors Group set the ball rolling and the groups who performed with good co-ordination, costumes , moves and neat presentation emerged as the winners. The group of Rajalakshmi, Saranya & Shobana became the first prize winners in the Dance Juniors Category and the group of Soorya, Sanjay & Preethika Group won the Second prize in the Dance Juniors Category. A high competition was seen in the Seniors group dance competition and ultimately Reshma Rameshkumar, Madumathi Saranavanan and Viswanath Shiva became the first prize winners in the Dance Senior Category and Harshavardhini, Pradakshya, Rithu, Priya, .Abinaya, Deiva Meena won the Second prize in the Dance Seniors Category. The humorous, witty and lively Skits performed few groups enlightened the audience and the skit ‘ Kuwaitil Kattabomman’ performed by the budding artists Sanjay, Soorya, Santhosh, Shreya, Preethika was highly applauded and appreciated by the audience. The advertising competition ‘ Ads Up’ to a selected product/ company reflected a real world advertising situation and completely pitched the integrated communications abilities of the participants to the audience . Mr.Premnath, Mrs.D.S.Kumari & Mrs.Indira Selvarangan did a wonderful advertising campaign for the Bata Chappal to win the 1st prize whereas Mrs.Ponni Raman and Mrs.Radhika Selvam won the 2nd prize with their advertising talent for a BIG TV Channel. Kolam a symbol of Beauty and a welcoming Environment was included as a Indoor competition for this Kodai Vizha. Kambi Kolam Patterns based on dots arranged in different types of grid patterns and coloured artistic creative design kolam patterns were included in the competition. Mrs. Rajeevi Sambandam Raja became the 1st Prize winner and Mrs. Vijaya Rajapandian became the 2nd Prize winner. The Mono Acting Competition in the Kodai Vizha displayed the in born acting talents of TEF family children with various Themes and characters. There were themes like depiction of Thirupoor Kumaran, Veerapandiya Kattabomman and novel portrait of a daily routine home activities. A tough competition existed within the budding artists which made the judging activity a difficult task , however Pooja Varshini and Harsha Vardhini emerged as the 1st and 2nd Prize winners respectively. The Pattu Paada Vaa programme , the song based Antakshari competition had variety of songs, loads of fun and tested the few general knowledge abilities of the participants relevant to the Tamil Film Songs. The final participants were selected after a tough Initial Preliminary round of selection. Though the final list had participant groups had young children competing with adults and gave a very tough competition, finally the adults groups emerged as the winner. The 1st First Prize was won by Mr.Kasi Viswanathan & Mrs. Arankanayaki Saranavanan and the 2nd Prize was won by Mrs.Vijayalakshmi & Mrs.Mahalakshmi One of the event appreciated by all , for its inclusion in 2010 Kodai Vizha programme for the first time in TEF history was the Movie Creation competition. None of the judges who evaluated the competition entries ever imagined such a wonderful creativity, screen play and acting skills exists within our TEF family members and this has been hiding for so long within the TEF community. It is for sure this event is going make a permanent presence in all future TEF events for ever. A movie titled ‘Mul Malarkal’ by Master.Nafual Shahul and Master.Amro Shahul prepared with the support of their parents won the applause from the whole audience & judges. Kumari. Aaathirai Muthukumar’s film impressed the judges equally similar to the short films by young boys Master.Kaushik Nagarajan, Master.Arun Balaji, Master.Shiva Katatsham and with the other group Mr.Mukilan, Mr.Adithya, Mr.Anirudh… It was extremely difficult for the judges to choose the winner and hence the prizes were awarded to all the four films. Poetry Writing is an art with creative insight and articulate, creative use of language and people who seem to be able to think in poetry are gifted by God… The Tamil Kavithai competition, as usual brought out the in born poetic talents of our TEF family members… But the surprise for this year was the male participants were unable to compete with the poetic talents of our lady family members. In the Tamil Kavithai competition Mrs.Sabura Hameed won the 1st prize and Mrs.Saleeka Shahul won the 2nd prize. Almost 70 Children responded to the challenge of our drawing competition with tremendous enthusiasm and very impressive artwork. The judges had such a hard task to decide the winners as there were several impressive and imaginative work by the Children and finally the decision was made. In the Drawing Competition for Juniors Category Karthi Shivakumar won the 1st Prize and Lavanya Jeyakumar won the 2nd Prize whereas in the Drawing Competition for Senior Category Aishwarya Jeyakumar won the 1st Prize and Kaushik Nagarajan won the 2nd Prize. In the ‘Radio Jockey’ competition for compering a Radio Programme Mrs.Saleeka Shahul & Mrs.Arankanayaki Saravanan won the 1st Prize and Mrs.Ponni Raman & Mrs. Radhika Selvam won the 2nd Prize. The Block & Tackle competition was very humorous and funny. Talking crap and contradicting was the way to victory. Speaking in a supporting manner to the selected title and instantaneously changing and talking opposite that contradict the previous statements is difficult task and it tested the participant’s humour, presence of mind and confidence. The audience was quite lively as usual. The talking legends of TEF Mr.Muthukumar won the 1st Prize and Mr.Chakravarthy won the 2nd Prize … The Quiz competition had several entries and the final list of participants were selected after a screening round . In the finals , the winners were the group of Mrs.Latha and Mrs.Vinutha whereas the group Mr.Kasi Viswanathan and Mrs.Arankanayaki Saravanan became the runners. After a long competition day, the important program of the event commenced– A Science with Fun - Demonstration cum Workshop was performed by Mr.Ashok Rupner from The Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. The basic and hard to understand scientific principles were demonstrated easily in a highly creative manner with simple toys which was made from useless throw away materials in our home that spin, fly, whistle…. and through simple experiments... It was really a worth to watch program for all ages from School children, College students, Parents, Teachers and our future Scientists. The crowd broke out into applause when Mr.Ashok completed his 2.5 hour programme. As the crowd looked at him, standing there, they felt that there could not have been anyone else with such a simplicity educating high level fundamentals in a very easy manner and receiving a standing salute and ovation .. Mr. Ashok deserved it. In an overall , the entire day once again became an ever lasting memory for TEF family members and the TEF Committee members went for a good sleep after a long time of hard work & efforts and with a self satisfaction.