V.PAL - Crazy Mohan of Nagarathar Drahma world

    There are people who go behind publicity but have you heard of Publicity go behind people ? That is “V.PAL” for you. Since many of my readers outside Nagarathar community may not know who V.Pal is I am going to give a brief summary about him. V.Pal (Venkatachalam Palaniappan) is residing in Toronto, Canada and is a very prominent figure amongst Tamil community in Toronto area. He has got natural talent when it comes to Directing Tamil Skits/ writing Poems/ Kavidhais etc., Nagarathar Retreat is something that happens once in two years during Independence day weekend and nagarathars all over US and Canada try to attend the gathering. V.Pal’s skit is much sought after and there is always sky level expectation like a Thalaivar movie and still he manages to deliver blockbusters skits every two years. For this reason he is super popular amongst Nagarathar community in USA and Canada. If style and Thalaivar go hand in hand then popularity and V.Pal go hand in hand.

    Now let us know about V.Pal bit closer. He started his career in India in Banking sector and when he was Regional Head for a leading private bank opportunity knocked his door and he migrated to Canada in early 2000’s. He is currently working as a Marketing Manager in Toronto area and those who have seen him would you believe he is into his later 50’s ? Both his daughters are married and he also has two grand children. If you look at his Whatsapp profile picture it may look like a freshly passed out M.S candidate who wants to pose with sea as the background purely to impress Girls ? No kidding …How does he look youthful ? Well he does Yoga, Meditation and he also uses ‘Powder’ quite a bit. Power naps are also one of the secret for his Youthfulness. Nagarathar community is quite small community and as far as my knowledge goes there are roughly around 40000 families throughout the globe. There are many prominent personalities in many different fields but if you take ‘Live Drahma’ (not Cinema) I am not sure whether there are people who are equipped with more talent than V.Pal; V.Pal has got some raw natural talent and since my wife has got more stampings (Canada Visa) than how much Senthil got from Goundamani I was lucky to be part of many such gatherings and enjoy his company whenever I visit Minu in Canada. Life and Stress looks like are directly proportional and apart from enjoying Raja sir music as my companion one other thing which I love doing is to watch his skits in bits and pieces in Youtube to bring that curve on my face. So according to me he is Crazy Mohan of Nagarathar community.

     So when did V.Pal start doing skits ? It all started in Detroit Retreat in 2007 and no looking back since then. Also during events like Tamil New Year, Mother’s day, Pattimandram, Father’s day, Diwali, Pillayar Nombu his presence is felt and he has done some impromptu performances and brought the house down which just reiterates the fact this man has been blessed with natural talent. His skits are played at various locations – Centenary celebrations at Coimbatore Nagarathar Sangam, Reception in Chennai etc., Just like how Sun TV was a pioneer in privatizing television channels in Tamil Nadu, V.Pal’s skits were pioneer on so many Nagarathar drahmas that took place all over the globe. People took his template – characters, dialogues, Context and made minor changes only to become a hero in their own group.

 Now million dollar question ..What makes his skit work big time amongst the audience? Here are my views

[1] Break the Stereotype: On a circular playground if everyone walks clockwise it is very natural that you are bound to be back of one another and this could hamper your pace. How about you walk anti-clockwise ? This is what V.Pal does as he gets the basics right. When every drahma group think about Appatha, Aiya characters which has become very redundant these days he comes up with a plot which is still nagarathar oriented but injects freshness into the plot. Also very natural for drahma groups to have recorded voice in background and have characters just come and act but V.Pal is one person who insists on Live drahma ..In fact one of the Retreats he declined to stage his drahma since there were technical difficulties in getting the mics for everyone, organizers had to re-schedule his skit to a different day

[2] Make Lady Character strong: This is a simple Thumb rule ..give Lady character a meaty role and your skit is bound to reach masses. “Appatha” character in ‘Ponnu Pudichiruku”; Sindhu Senthilnathan, Vasantha Valliappan,  Dr.Muthulakshmi characters in “Enga Appachi Sandhiki.... Ellarum Vaanga”; Valli Adaikappan character in “Ikkaraiku Akkarai pachai” are all so very well written.  

[3] Camaraderie in Group: V.Pal drahma makes sure real and reel spouses are shuffled …bachelors are turned senior achis …People not getting bothered about their ‘Image’ in Stage are some of the features. Long story short people get into skin of the character ..

[4] V.Pal and Spontaneity: If you carefully observe his plays many magic moments are created then and there …when people laugh loud at auditorium V.Pal goes crazy and he comes up with many dialogues which were not there originally in the script ..this becomes challenge for other characters in the frame as they are unaware of how to react to his counter dialogues but people somehow manage. One classic example is Dining scene in “Enga Appachi Sandhiki.... Ellarum Vaanga”

[5] Slice of Life: V.Pal also does pull real life examples and once audience connect and relate to the dialogues smile becomes laugh. Example: The dialogue when he says “Vadai Vellai Paniyaram ellam eppo pichu pichu podraanga” garnered so much laughter since audience related to what happened on that day and also when he says “Eppo evunga ellam nenaichadhu maariya ponnu kedachudhu ..kedaicha tha vechu evlo santhoshama illa” it brought whole house down and in fact skit was almost paused for few seconds for people to complete the laugh.

    Now coming to Challenges …well V.pal’s skit gets so much attention and this could even bring down the potential due to the pressure. V.Pal puts in so much of effort since he feels with no close up shots, and technological restrictions the only way he can connect with audience is dialogues and how people deliver on stage. He religiously practices and is always a tough task to pull people together for practice sessions. Moreover he has to write characters based on who is participating in Retreat. The way he comes up with Characterizations for Mr.Balan, Annamalai annan, Mr.Subi are incredible and just shows he has good creative mind. Also none of his drahma members have prior experience acting in drahma and it is wonderful to see him give dialogues for every single individual attending Retreat from Canada.

   Stage is set for his drahma in July 2019 which promises to be Grand mother of all Retreats. Am looking forward for his drahma …..In fact whether a young mom who wants to feed her child or 60 + who want to take Crestor/Metformin everyone would finish off their task before Canada play. If at all there is one empty chair during his play I can guarantee there is some mechanical issues with the chair. I just wish if a Psychologist can be able measure the happiness in an environment through some instrument since I bet a place where V.Pal skit is running is a place where Happiness index would be saturating.

For all friends who haven’t seen his plays, here are the URLs of his Blockbuster Skits (Knowing Nagarathar community to some extent will help you relate more to the dialogues )

Detroit Retreat : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_8qTrHUFgU&feature=youtu.be

New Jersey Retreat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm2t0UXyq7M&t=295s

California Retreat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWFye85N_KU

Boston Retreat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Rfk2Petpc&t=871s

This space reserved for D.C Retreat …….

    

Trichy Ayyappan Temple

   For people who belong to Trichy this blog may not provide any new information but for people who have not been to Ayyappan Temple in Trichy this blog may be informative. This temple is pride of Trichy and is a great testimony for the city. “Silence” and “Cleanliness” are two things that make this temple an unique experience for devotees. There is always bunch of volunteers roaming around in the temple to make sure silence is maintained throughout the premise, if a toddler runs around suddenly you will see a volunteer rushing towards you asking to take care of the kid. Cleanliness is something which is very hard to enforce in India with the sort of population we have but people can come here and do a case study on how to keep the premise clean. This temple hosts so many plants and it is wonderful to see so much of greenery in a Temple. Now let me walk you through the temple…As soon as you enter there are volunteers who take care of slippers; Outside India it is very natural to have people volunteer in Temple in different areas like Kitchen, Religious activity, Logistics etc., but in India norm is people sponsor money and there are always laborers to take care of different departments. But this is one temple that breaks the conventional wisdom and have common people volunteer in different departments. Temple does not have Undiyal, no money for priests, Archanai is done in the name of the lord, there is absolutely no commercial activity in the premise. On behalf of your company even if you want to make a huge sponsor they will not entertain to advertise your business whatsoever. Dress code is something they strictly follow and they will stop you right there if they find your dress inappropriate. People make fun of Indian standard time but temple’s punctuality is something similar to military standards.

Here are some of the features of the temple:

(1)    Temple donates Buttermilk for common citizens from March 1 to May 31st of every year since that is peak summer

(2)    Balar School: Temple enrolls young kids and teaches so many religious stuff, wonderful sight to see kids in white uniform on Sundays

(3)    Devaram-Thiruvasagam classes happen on Saturdays

(4)    Every 2^nd and 4^th Sunday Blood camps happen and this has won so many accreditation in the state

(5)    Educational assistance to those who secured good marks but economically backward

(6)    There are so many Herbal plants in the temple premise – 356 herbal plants, plants for all 27 nakshatras, 368 trees etc., A walk around the temple looking into all these plants can be refreshing

(7)    There are Yoga classes, Hindi classes, Religious yatras, Eye/Organ Donation awareness camps etc., which happen at regular intervals

 One of the thing which I really love about the Temple is the writings all over. They have so many granite stones and you will come across beautiful phrases which may enlighten you. For regular visitors ‘Moral story’ written on the wall every week next to book stall is something you will look forward to. There is one spot in the temple where the famous song from Mannan “amma vendrazhaikkadha uyirillaye” is written on the wall and you could also play it. So many people come and pay respects to their moms by doing a sashtang namaskaram in front of the lyrics. There is also one spot in the temple near the big dyana mandapam a place where they have instilled 1574 holy stones from many different temples. Temple management also has one post box just back of Ayyappan sannidhi where one can write a letter requesting lord to help. Every month during Lord Ayyappa’s nakshatram day (Uthiram) they present the letters under the feet of lord Ayyappa and priest does archanai for “Genuine” requests to be fulfilled. Then they discard the letters using paper shredding machine.

   Temple attracts 20000, 30000 or even more devotees on English new year, Tamil new year etc., Anyone organization who wants to know how to deal with massive crowd but at the same time ensure the purpose of each one’s visit is duly met then they got to visit this temple on those days. On Tamil new year day I went around 8.30 – 9 am and they said we already crossed more than 8000. There is so much of planning which is fully backed by wonderful execution by volunteers. There are no major barricades, savukku kambu or big sticks involved in crowd management but just a plain simple white thread is what it takes. Temple is just at the heart of the city but the way crowd is handled is something that is absolutely amazing. If you have not visited the temple I would highly recommend you to visit Ayyappan Temple, Trichy and get lord’s blessings. Give yourself enough time to be in the temple for you to experience the divinity and make sure you check Temple timings and plan your trip accordingly.