Thanima
2020

About Thanima

“Festivals promote diversity, they bring neighbours into dialogue, they increase creativity, they offer opportunities for civic pride, they improve our general psychological well-being. In short, they make cities better places to live.” – David Binder

Essentially, the harvest festival of Kerala brings about a general sense of unity among all the Malayalis, overcoming barriers, obstacles and boundaries, all of us come together as one to celebrate this joyous occasion. This harvesting festival represents the home-coming of the mythical demon-king Maveli, celebrated on the first day of the Chingam month, which is the first month in the Malayalam calendar, Kollavarsham. The Onam celebrations, here at VIT, is celebrated through ‘Thanima’. Thanima was first conducted in the year 2002 and thus was set into motion, the legacy of this wonderful and auspicious celebration. Each year our celebrations are aggrandized by the presence of dignified personalities such as Vineeth Sreenivasan, Swetha Menon, Shri. K. B. Ganesh Kumar, Deepak Dev, Shri. G Karthikeyan, Siddhi Mahajankatti, Vayalar Ravi (MP), Marina Michael Kurisingal etc. The Thanima festivities are also accompanied by various Sporting and Cultural events that boost up morale, companionship, sportsmanship, creativity and togetherness of the entire community. It is a visual treat to witness all these art forms and tradition being exhibited in all its vigour in such a grand stage. This visual spectacle is also a ground for the most renowned Onasadhya which is the grand feast, quite like no other. The multitude of flavours that strike our taste buds and sends it into a nostalgic frenzy is one of the most delightful parts of the Thanima celebration. Thanima brings together this entire community and gives us the opportunity to explore how as malayalis we should be proud about our culture. Besides being a celebration, Thanima has found its way into becoming a pillar of support for those who are in need which includes medical aids during floods, activities such as tree planting and much more.

Thanima 2020

As the tale goes, Maveli was granted a single wish from Vishnu – To come forth to his kingdom and see his people. The people of the Kerala.

Thus follows the legend of Onam – The Apex of Festivities in our God’s Own Country, where people come together as one, united by the spirit of Onam.

Inculcating the spirit of this legend, we, the students of VIT have organised Onam celebrations almost every year. This helps in bringing together the entire Malayali community under one roof. This year has been nothing but a bag of disheartening surprises and as the curtains drop on all the traditional festivities and people become glued to the incessant inevitability of dwindling hope and the ever so escalating air of eerie despair, we have charted out the plan to revive the spirits and to break this chain of inactivity.

Thanima 2k20 Live embodies the spirit of previous Thanima yet puts forth the entirely avant-garde concept of the Event being conducted online. It shall completely shatter the preconceived notions of online events and will set a new standard for such events in the future. All the Events and competitions shall be completely online and will be conducted in a pattern wherein people don’t feel threatened about their safety. All Thanima 2k20 events and competitions shall have rewards and manifest the feeling of recouping ethos of what Onam means to each one of us. Although we are separated, locked away in different corners, all of us shall be brought together on this festive occasion to enlighten our spirits through the staggering exhibition of Dance, Music, Art and culture.

Let this festive season of colours, lights, happiness and oneness be scintillating once again and let it not be ‘masked’ behind this menacing visitor. The radiance of Thanima 2020 shall be the beacon of hope for all VIT students in these testing times.