Pongal ideas:Plant, pot-paint,, and picnic

First, my appreciation to Mantri's core committee, notably, Krishna (F Block) and Sunil (D Block),for planning a Pongal party, like the one we had on New Year Day. Our young friend Sunil, in a comment on my earlier post, has asked us to come up with ideas. Pravin's (B block) told us at New Year party, we should do a pot lunch some time.
Pongal brunch: I would suggest a community brunch on Jan.15. I say brunch, because many of us may want to have lunch at home with family on festival days. Those who make pongal in the morning could spare some for a community brunch. This would provide an opportunity for non-Tamil Mantri residents to taste our pongal. And we can make a picnic of it on Mantri front lawns.

Pot-painting: It has been some time since our children painted the pots on the driveway. Besides, we have now a lot more kids at Mantri's than we had when we did pot-painting on children's day. Pongal picnic on Mantri front lawns can be clubbed with a pot-painting session for children. At our last session (on Children's Day) we decided that fun-painting by Mantri's children should be organized at every available opportunity. What better opportunity can we hope for than Pongal
There are quite some pots waiting to be painted. The children who participated last time can either give a new look to their old pots or take up fresh ones for painting. Eligibility: Children, age one (even less,if they can hold a brush), to the ones who are 73 (my age), if they bring a brush and some paint. We have the benefit of Purnima's advisory on where to look for paint and brush.
Planting a tree: At Mantri's we celebrate special occasions with saplings, as part of an ongoing community tree-planting programme. We have planted till date some 15 saplings under the programme since June last. And the saplings so planted have each a name and individual entity.

Seen in the photo are the grandparents of Aadhya (H Block) posing with 'Nityadhya',the neem that has been named after Nitya (B block) and Aadhya, who planted the sapling to celebrate the last Children's Day. We have saplings named Aadit (first-born at Mantri's), the Nambiars (first family to move in at Mantri's), Ujjal(in-house Santa), and Niren Satya (representing migrant workers at Mantri's).
I suggest we request Mr Sivaram of PropCare to help us identify a suitable spot, and procure a sapling from planting on Pongal Day. Once we get the sapling we would decide who would plant it.