The mean age of Northwest Nagarathar kids is 10. They have shown so much enthusiasm in our past few Nagarathar events that we have compelling reason to believe that they really want more involvement in our community. The truth is these kids, even though raised in the United States, are more Chettiar than several Nagarathar kids back home……we believe this is manifested in little ways like their love for paniyaram, love to hang out with other Nagarathar kids, love for Tamil movies/music and most of all their love to read the NANAL.

At home, we get down to fisticuffs when the mail brings in the latest NANAL issue. It is tucked under my 7 year old‘s pillow for a while, then we find it in my husband‘s favorite bathroom, it gets read at the dinner table (and un-der the dinner table), it gets carried around in my gym bag for a couple more days, then after a long tiring journey it is safely put with our collection of NANALs from the past several years.

Finally the beacon shone on us - the perfect way for the kids to get intimate with our Sangam would be to share and contribute to the NANALmagazine. Our trendsetter Visu is entrusted with this job for the covering the Diwali func-tion. Pillayar Nombu is being covered by Nagu Chidambaram, and there on the torch will get passed to other kids.

– Valli Sevugan