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The interesting events included in the the fourth day were sand sculpture, boat race and dog show.
But oh! the boat show was cancelled due to poor participation.

Now lets have a look of the events…

An orchestra performance going on…

A wonderful sand sculpture created by students of Barathiar Palkalaikoodam welcoming the photographers with delight.

The Dog show…
The organisers have planned it very well by arranging separate schedules for the different breed of dogs.

The presence of the Rajapalayam breed was quite wonderful. At some point of time they had some difference of opinion among themselves it seems and quarrelled a lottill their masters took turn to control them.

The kalakal of the dog show was one Great Dane which was so big enough with people commenting it as kannukutti (cow calf). Its height is double than the usual dogs, a first sight to many of the visitors. We were told that its from the owner of Krishnalaya Theater.

The show was great but enough lighting was not there to make good snaps. The lights provided were far off from the place of the show.

Then the wonderful performance of dogs from the police department continued. But lighting provided for the show was very poor for snapping. So I could not make it for our blog.

The flood light away from the place of the show helped me a lot, where I requested some of the dog owners for the photograph. They were kind enough to pose their vets for the photos. A big THANKS to them.

A shadow puppet show was going on at the stage. The officials informed that this is a very rare art. The two elderly people who performed the show are eager to teach this ancient art, so that it is propagated to the next generation, but the sad part is that there are still no takers. This art was being promoted by the grand daughter of our father of nation Mahatma Gandhi.

The performers of the shadow puppet show.

The interesting folk show called Thappatam continued. The performers were so skilled in their coordination of steps.

The show with the drums.

Here is the glimpse of the cultural treat happening in our city.

The Therukoothu show was going on..

The performer who were fast making their steps. Somewhat there was a lack in coordination of their steps;; seems they got little time to practice.

This man lifting three containers filled with water to the brim. The great feat here is that he was lifting one of the containers with this teeth. A great performance.

The little boy thrilled the audience with his balancing trick that too upside down at great heights.

Another feat by the youth. They are totally fearless.

What you see here is a man stampeding the performer. The performer is lying on to thorny cactus branches.

The balancing trick on the nearly 20 feet high ladder..

Then came another troupe with their part for the folk art.

The wonderful show by the drum beaters…



A colourful show..

The people from the different groups joined together to make up a good dance…

A part of the crowd I snapped while leaving from the beach at 10.00 p.m.

The day two of the Summer Festival “Neiythal” is an awful experience.
I was bit late to the show. Some of the programmes like Healthy Baby contest were over by the time. The first programme I chanced was a dance show. It is a perfect show and the music is played by members of the group which was very much exhilarating

The dance with the drums by the girls. This dance is usually performed by males but it now seems to be taken on by the girls who performed this show nicely.

The karakattam…

Another show..
…
Now the time was about 9.30 p.m. the comedy show by Saravanan of “Vijay TV kalaka povathu yaru” fame stepped into the stage. I came to know that he is a native of our city Cuddalore.
The performance by this group made the audience burst into laughter.

A mimic of the cricket show…

A mimic of the famous actors..
The show of Robot stole the day’s shows. The man who performed as a robot made his muscles dance one by one. The applause from the audience was so high… !!
Ohh! now it was ticking 10.40 p.m. I will be too late to home in the middle, I need to snap our temple festival.
And a snap of the last show.

The compère speech by the PR officials in the show was very nice. A wow to them.
A number of unwanted plastic chairs and soft drink crates (avoided in these photos) were found stacked on the sides of the stage which is an eye sore. If these are kept away, the stage will definitely look more attractive.

The opening ceremony of the summer festival by the dignitaries.

The folk dance which created much enthu to the audience. The female dancer just opened the cork of the pepsi bottle with her mouth only, i.e without touching the bottle with her hand. A splendid performance.
An elderly male folk dancer is much young in performing the kavadi dance which made me spell bound and I forgot to catch his performance in my camera for some moments.

The entrance to the exhibits.

A wonderful architecture made using vegetables. Many of the onlookers may at the first sight take it for a artificial show piece. A closer look will tell the tale that the architect has made wonders with natural vegetables. Yes what you see is a carrot, beetroot, veggies, etc., Many of us might have got similar pics on our inbox. But seeing is believing. That too its happening in our city Cuddalore.

A photo of a gold fish exhibited in the next stall. A good wall paper for your pc..
Yes these are the cage birds enthralling the visitors with their sweet music.

For the first time many of the visitors might have seen an Emu. A fact illustrated in the exhibit is that its egg fetches a price of One thousand rupees. The height of the bird is nearly 5 feet.
A stall put up by the State Bank of India
A rare exhibit of the guns by the Police Dept. in which AK47 added feather to the Cap.
The large rifle placed second from left, is the AK47 which made its inventor proud and the people sleepless since it is mostly used by the terrorists.

Department of Information and Public Relations will be conducting ‘Summer Festival’ in Silver Beach for the first time after tsunami, by the end of this month. As NinA wrote Silver beach awaiting Summer festival .So are the people. This time, as usual the festival will be conducted when the summer is almost over and children has already gone back to school. This time the festival will be for 5 days. Each day will have a special event/competition.

Though the festival provides good entertainment for the locals residents, it should not end in itself. The festival must showcase Cuddalore’s beautiful beaches to outside world to attract both domestic and foreign tourists(If Pondicherry can attract 25,000 foreign tourists a year, Cuddalore can attract atleast one fourth of it if a little effort is taken). To achieve this getting the attention of the media is necessary. And media attention can be got by adding some new attractive events/competitions (in addition to the existing) to the schedule.

Making of sand sculptures and organising a competition for the same, will greatly attract media people.It might be difficult for the first fews years to attract a large no. of competitors.But as the event gets popular there will be more competitiors. Students and staff members of ‘Barathiyar Kalaikoodam’ are well versed in making sand scluptures. To begin with, their expertise can be sought.

Beach volley ball used to be a event once.Over the years the event has disappeared. Necessary arrangements can be made to bring back the event.

‘Kite Festival’ is another attractive event.(If wind in this part of the year isn’t strong enough, a seperate festival for flying kites can be held around the month of August (or when the wind is strong) with the assistance of Department of Tourism.)This will greatly attract the foreign tourists.

Similarly firework display (preferably from offshore) by the late evening hours will attract more crowd and will get the much needed media hype.

This time, I hope, some stalls will be reserved for conveying information about disaster manage -ment, awarness towards disasters and importance of coastal vegetation. Usually stalls use to come up in the beautiful green spread to the east of ‘White House’ (SP’s official residence). But now Government of Rajasthan’s makes bricks here for its tsunami rehabilitation project (thus spoiling a part of the green spread). It would not look tidy to have stalls arround this. It is too early to guess the solution the district administration will come up with.

Construction of new bridge is another problem faced this time.The make shift ground level bridge near the old one will be unsafe for such huge crowd that would turn up. Though it is said that the other bridge connecting Cuddalore straight to Devanampattinam is ready this time, its still not clear what other arrangements will be made (apart from wooden bridge for pedestrains).

I will keep updating the developements as it happens.