Thank you for your amazing turnout on 21st April 2012 for our society’s Puthandu Kondattam.

The SIS members became a creative powerhouse. Good things happen when ideas and talents are shared within the community. This gave a stupendous show with colour and variety.

Tamil New Year - April 2012

The entire program reflected artistic excellence, creativity and community engagement. There’s a fine balance between acknowledging the greatness of the past whilst at the same time rapidly leaping forward to the future. The selection of items was incredible as the creative team acknowledged everyone has an opinion.

Dr Chandru and Mrs Latha Murthy compeered the show with subtle humour and a lot of punch dialogues.

The day opened with invocation of God. Miss Ananya Hari-Narain on the vocal and Master Harish Seshadri on the keyboard, followed by a mesmerising prayer song by Master Sarvesh Kaushik.

This was followed by the Panchamgam reading by Shri Sivasankaran. We are sure the members were overjoyed with excellent predictions for the year.

The fashion show by our tiny tots conveyed the message Unity in Diversity. We are reminded of Mahakavi Bharatiyaar – "Muppadhu kodi mugamudayaal, uyir meipuravondrudayaal... ival seppu mozhi padhinettudayaal enil sindhanai ondrudayaal"

The deep rooted culture of classical music and dance came alive with a veena recital by Mrs Meena Sugavanam and her team.

Kollattam Dance by Harrow girls was the next item which mesmerised the crowd with SPB’s voice lilting in the background. Perhaps a teaser for our forthcoming Dandiya Night in the coming months??

Kaikotti kali, the traditional Kerala dance by the Harrow ladies were spectacular.

The crowd was super charged with the stand up comedy, Azhagiya Tamizh Magan by Sathish Duraisamy & Mrs Revathy Mahadevan.

Bharathanatyam by Mrs Purnima Chandrasekhar and Mrs Ramya Hari-Narain enthralled the crowed, especially the siva-stuthi.

Kadavasal Karthik, Dr Santhosh Kumar & Mohann Gopal had the crowd in splits with their short skit, a spoof of the current Tamil cinema.

The program came to a melodious end with a duet by Mrs Sangeetha and Dr Srinivasan

While proposing the vote of thanks, Mr N Sundar referred to the election on 19th April of Prof Shankar Balasubramanian as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

It is arguably the greatest honour that can be bestowed upon a scientist, bettered only by award of Nobel Prize. Past members include Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Currently there are just over 1000 members, including nearly 100 Nobel Prize winners, who, vote on the addition of just 44 new members each year, on the basis of a peer review of list of several hundred scientists across the world. In the last two hundred years, less than 50 persons of Indian origin have been conferred this honour, including Ramanujam, Sir CV Raman and Dr Chandrasekar.

Shankar is the Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Cambridge. An internationally recognised leader in the field of nucleic acids, he is the principal inventor of a next generation sequencing methodology of human genomes. His work has already pioneered applications in biological and medical sciences, especially, cancer.

Professor Shankar's parents, Mr Balasubramanian and Mrs Padma Balasubramanian, are among the oldest members of SIS and many in the SIS fraternity have known Shankar from the time he was a toddler. The entire SIS Tamil New Year gathering passed on their congratulations to Shankar through their proud but quiet parents.'

On the whole, the mood was infectious and everyone seemed to have a great time. The day came to an end with the serving of traditional Tamilian saappadu.

Thanks all for being there. Thank you Mother Nature for the near perfect weather. The light showers refreshed things but glad you passed us for the thunderstorms.

Those about to rock, now head for Cruising on Thames. Join the cool crowd on June 16, Saturday. Get in quick as the places sell out superfast.