My grandfather was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. As I started researching into the subject, I found that the incidence of prostate cancer was increasing in India and yet, there was very little awareness of this disease. Unlike the Western world, where there are a number of charities and fund raising events like Movember, Cancer Research, etc., that raise funds and awareness about prostate cancer, here in India most charities concentrate on children, women or old age and almost none focusing on men and their health.
So, inspired by the traditional Kerala festival of Onam, Angel Dust Events organised a theme-based fundraiser party on the 21st of September.
This event was to help raise awareness and funds towards the cause of Prostate Cancer.
There was an informal dinner with a few interesting games inspired by Onam/Kerala traditions for entertainment, along with scrumptious Keralan food.
We were kindly supported by KLF, Coconad who feel strongly towards the cause and stepped forward to help us.
All proceeds collected were donated to CPAA (Cancer Patients Aid Association).
Here are a few pictures:
Our very own hand made goody bags with pictures depicting onam traditions, hand-drawn by Rex John Philipose.
We also made matching cocktail sticks and Food Labels, unfortunately we do not have good pictures of the same, since we had a very unfortunate incident with the camera that day.
The evening started with an upbeat Kerala Theme Fusion Dance performed by the elegant Regina Philipose. Here is a video we managed:
Followed by a traditional Kerala game of ‘Sundarik Pottathodal’, a version of tail the donkey. Here we had the guests blindfolded and the task was to put the bindi on the beautiful woman’s forehead. The beautiful woman was painted by the very beautiful Praseeda Menon, a dear friend and a proud cancer survivor. Here are a few pictures:
And here is our prize winner Aneesh Menon. The prize was given away by my mentor Prathish Nair, also the Chief Architect at Trancend Brand Consulting.
Everyone settled down to have an absolutely delicious meal prepared by Chef Siju of Vembanad, The Paul. The Kerala style fish fingers and the Illaneer Payasam were to die for.
We ended the wonderful evening with a last game, the traditional ‘Uri Adi’. There was a pot tied up high on the ceiling, the guests were given turns to try and break the pot with a stick, blind folded ofcourse, while we moved the pot left to right using a pulley. Unfortunately we do not have any pictures of this one.
As the cool, breezy evening came to a close, a happy group of people went their ways having had an evening of fun, drinks, food and most of all feeling good about contributing to a cause as part of their Onam celebrations.
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