Volunteers make Mylapore Festival

Vignesh and Naveen are on a special assignment this week. They are working on two jobs simultaneously at the annual Mylapore Festival.
Producing 3-minute videos of what catches their fancy at the 40 events spread across four days. And documenting the Fest the way they see it.
They use a still camera and a video-cam and are learning new ways of producing short videos that they have begun to post on YouTube
You can take a look at the second video they produced at the Morning Kutcheri in Nageswara Rao Park (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SGHwpHNZ8Y)
Vignesh and Naveen are two of the three dozen young people who are active volunteers at this unique Fest.
They are the backbone because they have to run events, manage the artistes and audience and put up with pesky people!
Rahul and his team of Sharanaya and Ganesh are in charge of Hospitality. Their menu card is small - rose milk, samosas, idli -gostu and coffee but their responsibility is big. They cater to all the artistes at the evening events, shuttling between kitchen and venues.
They do this because they like doing it.
Deepika is new to the city. That has not discouraged her from running the Talks event every evening. That done she hops across the street and helps four others issue tokens to hungry visitors to the Fest on the Food Street.
Janani Sivakumar is the new emcee on the main stage. While at engineering college, she has presented events on campus: she worked hard this week to fashion a script and present the shows held in the Sannidhi Square.
The Fest team also has senior people lending their hand.
Jayaraman is a fulltime volunteer, involved with a ‘Don’t Talk on your Cell Phone While Crossing Rail Tracks’ campaigns at railway stations and counting donations dropped in the hundis at some leading city temples.
He is a regular at the Fest and can be seen at the Info Shack, keeping account of souvenirs like Tees, coffee mugs and framed photos sold here.
Volunteerism is an integral part of the Mylapore Festival.
Just as most of the events are built around Mylapore and its people and institutions.
A jewellery store offered space to hold the ‘Mylapore Rewind’ series.
And the sponsorship from Sundaram Finance has made it all happen.
If you still have not been to the Fest, make sure you are soaking in it this weekend. (Details at - www.mylaporefestival.com)