Home » Tantalising taste of India at upcoming Tamil festival

Tantalising taste of India at upcoming Tamil festival

Daniel Bouwmeester May 3, 2023 3 min read

**^{Visual splendour at last year’s festival.}**
**^{All images: Varnam Cultural Society Qld}**

The Varnam Cultural Society Queensland is hosting its annual celebration of multicultural talents at the free Greater Springfield Community Festival this weekend.

The fete will run from 11am to 9pm, this Saturday, May 6, at the Robelle Domain parklands, adjacent to Education City Drive, Springfield Central.

It will feature various exciting multicultural performances, carnival games, a live DJ, and fireworks.

Families and children in particular can enjoy the petting zoo and jumping castle.

Scores of food and business stalls will also set up shop.

It follows last year’s successful 10th anniversary festivities that included 260 performers and over 60 stalls, and an estimated more than 9,000 attendees.

Varnam Cultural Society Qld expects an even bigger turnout this year, according to its president and founder Rajarajan Thennavan.

“We have been successfully hosting our annual festive celebrations for the past 10 years, thus creating a platform for lots of new and young talents to perform on stage,” Rajarajan said.

“After the huge success of The Greater Springfield Community Festival in 2022, we would like to make the 2023 event even grander.”

This annual gathering is an opportunity for the locals to participate in community activities and renew social connections, Rajarajan added.

“Support for this event will also help raise much-needed funds for the advocacies of the Varnam Cultural Society.”

The Greater Springfield Community Festival coincides with the Tamil New Year. The event was previously called the ‘Multicultural Tamil & Indian New Year Celebration’.

At the 2020 Ipswich Australia Day Awards, Ipswich City Council awarded the festival’s 2019 incarnation as ‘City-wide Event of the Year’ for drawing crowds of diverse communities and backgrounds, including Indian, Fijian, Aboriginal, German, Iranian, Afghani, and African.

**^{Varnam Cultural Society Queensland, Inc. president Rajarajan Thennavan receiving the 2020 Ipswich Australia Day ‘City-wide Event of the Year’ award.}**

“This event works to foster cultural acceptance within our community, decrease racism and discriminatory attitudes and behaviours and showcase the talents of local artists and performers,” the Council noted on its website.

The Tamil New Year is known as “Puthandu”, and falls on April 14 each year. It is celebrated worldwide by the Tamil people (also ‘Tamilar’ or just ‘Tamils’), who originate from the southern part of India, as well as parts of Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore.

For more information, visit:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-greater-springfield-community-festival-tickets-615355854927.

Note: Booking online is not essential, but helps organisers manage expectations for attendance.

Daniel Bouwmeester

Daniel was born in a mining town in New South Wales to Dutch and Welsh immigrants, before relocating to Logan City, where he attended Canterbury College for twelve years. He pursued his passion for music by completing a first-class honours degree at the University of Queensland (UQ), and later signed with a local record label. He has travelled the world from a young age, including a student exchange in rural France, a job working the ski lifts in Colorado, and visits to the islands of the South Pacific. After a six-year career in market research, Daniel returned to UQ to complete a Bachelor of Journalism and Arts dual degree, majoring in political science. His varied experiences at home and abroad have contributed to a passion for spreading good news while defending the truth buried inside complex societal paradigms.