Festival buzz!

As the annual Sundaram Finance supported 'Mylapore Festival' enters Day Three and Four this weekend, our core team is in a 'happy' mode.
For a couple of reasons.
One. We have had three dozen young people voluntarily lending a hand at the event.This fest is indeed a community fest and the young should be at its core.
If there are many others who would like to chip in, come along!
Two. a good deal of the buzz on the fest is being generated through e-mails, on web groups, chat rooms, on picture-sharing sites and on blogs.
This is enabling home sick Chennaiites to link up with the colours, sights and sounds of the festival.
Our roaming cameraman, Mohandas Vadakara, is cleverly juggling his assignment at the fest venues to record snippets of events at different venues and another well wisher, Premanand at ChennaiStream is helping post the video live every afternoon.
We are hoping that the blogs, pictures and video streaming will bring this unique fest into the homes of people all over the world.
(O yes, the web site is www.mylaporefestival.com. Check it out and tell us if you liked the bright orange peacock-base design of the site!)
A third reason for our happiness is the fact that the state authorities have been been very co- operative and encouraging.
The police of this zone, led by Deputy Commissioner A. G. Mourya and his team have had a more important event to pay attention to - the 150th anniversary of the Chennai City Police. But they have found time to lend a hand at the fest.
Police Commissioner Letika Saran though had a suggestion - she would get her north Madras zone deputy commissioners to collaborate with us and local community groups to plan and host a similar fest in that area.
One of the most respected judges of the Madras High Court has made extremely encouraging remarks on the intentions and ideas of the festival in the course of a litigation that was brought against the fest this year too.
So if you and your family and friends have not yet made plans to soak in at this fest, do it now.
A carpet of kolams, a string of concerts of folk, classical dance and vintage film songs, food, art, crafts - everything that is special to our tradition is yours this weekend.