Media Release
London, Jul 24: UK Konkans, one of the premier associations of Mangaloreans in the UK held its annual picnic in the wild and beautiful location of Richmond park on July 20.
The UK Konkans family of friends gathered in the scenic Richmond park in South West London. It was a glorious day with the sun shinning throughout and temperatures were perfect. There was overwhelming response from the members and their families and friends who attended the picnic with a huge turn up.
Esthela Vaz, president of UK Konkans welcomed the gathering and thanked everyone for making it to the park to participate in the
picnic. Attendees were divided into fours teams and team members democratically lected leaders to the lead their respective teams on various games to be held during the day.
Beena D’Souza conducted a short prayer for the day. A traditional Mangalorean snack “pow” made of beaten rice, jaggery and onion was distributed which everyone enjoyed. Then began the games of the picnic.
The first game was the potato kicking which the kids participated enthusiastically. This was followed with the Dog and Bone game for teenagers. Then there was a team relay which consisted of sack race, lemon and spoon, three-legged race, and potato balancing.
There was great competitive spirit between the teams and it was always close finish. These games were fun-loving and thrilling to watch and the onlookers supported their teams.
Tug of war was something that got the spirits up for all involved. This being the most exiting and the teams fought each other like bulls. There was the men's tug of war followed by the ladies tug of war. Each team bought their best, skilled and strongest members forward to win the tug of war.
It was so exciting that the kids wanted to have a go and we had an impromptu kid’s tug of war which was well pulled by all the kids.
Each and every one took active participation in the games.
The men had a wonderful day of cricket in the beautiful English weather while others sang traditional Konkani songs.
The organizers did their very best to keep everyone satisfied with food and drinks. Biryani and raitha was served as lunch. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone.
The horse racing game was very interesting and people wanted their betted horse to win. It was a close victory for the red horse with all the other horses and a gray elephant close on its heels.
The very popular, Mangalorean traditional team game of Modki Putovnchi was conducted by Eric Dsouza who was well supported by all. Of all participants from all four team, there was only one winner.
As usual there was the game of Housie/Bingo with lots of cash prizes which was followed by antakshari which bought out the best singer in everyone. Numerous old and new Konkani , kannada and hindi songs were sung with great enthusiasm and spirit.
The picnic broke up late in the evening with a vote of thanks. Then crowd slowly dispersed carrying with them the vivid and pleasant memories of the fun-filled joyful day.
Next year will bring a new picnic which we will all be looking forward to attend. It was one of the best ever events hosted by UK Konkans for the Mangalorean community to get together, meet one another and enjoy the day.
This year’s picnic was a great success and a big thank you goes to the organisers for all the efforts in planning and executing this magnificent event and to all the participants whose dedication to the event made it a fantastic day out.
The next big UK Konkans event is the Christmas party to be held on December 8 which promises to be another great and memorable event.
For more details kindly log on to: http://www.ukkonkans.com