Indian Club thanks volunteers for Onam success

MUSCAT: Oman’s Indian Social Club (ISC) has thanked the volunteers who made the recent Onam celebrations organised by its Malayalam Wing a standout success.

Held on September 21, 22 and 23, the celebrations were a result of the hard work and dedication of more than 200 volunteers, who contributed more than 10,000 hours of their time to ensure the festival went off without a hitch.

“I can safely say that organising this has been a mammoth exercise,” said T. Bhaskaran, convener for ISC’s Malayalam Wing.

“Preparation for this began about five months ago. All the groups of the Malayalam Wing— the cultural wing, women’s wing, children’s wing, entertainment wing etc. — were involved in this, and our Onam event happened because of the synchronisation of all of these groups together.” In total, 3,430 people dined during the Onam feast on Saturday. Feeding them required about 1,000 kilos of vegetables of different kinds, as well as 440 kg of rice, 300 litres of laban, 220 litres of milk, 25 kilos of ghee, 100 kilos of oil and 180 kilos of sugar. In addition, 4,000 bananas were brought in from Salalah, and another 4,000 banana leaves came from Suwaiq.

“All of our materials were sourced from Oman,” added Bhaskaran.

“We bought the vegetables at a wholesale rate from the vegetable market. The rice was given free of cost by Enhance Oman, and we had about 5,000 bottles of water provided for free by Mai Dubai. We purchased all of the vegetables and fruits ourselves. Once a year, we go to sponsors for our annual expenses, so whatever we collect from sponsorships is spent on various events throughout the year.”

“Onam is our main event, and we also have cultural events, children’s events, women’s events, and many activities for social welfare,” he said. “This money is spent throughout the year, based on the sponsorship amount received. The cost of the Onam event was about OMR3,000.”

Bhaskaran also shed some light on how much effort the volun- teers had put into the three-day celebration.

“For the Onam Sadhya, after the end of the second day, all of the volunteers gathered in the Al Falaj Hotel hall, and began cutting vegetables and preparing pickles,” he revealed. Full story @ timesofoman.com/oman