While many artistes come from abroad to entertain their fellow compatriots living as expatriates here on occasions like Eid al-Adha, there are many local expats who would often come forward on such events to demonstrate their talent and ability.
Amid a galaxy of star artistes from different countries to perform at the Communities’ Eid Al Adha Celebrations 2016 organised by the Ministry of Interior (MOI) along with the local community organisations, the local expatriate performers also pitched in.
And their performance was cheered with as much enthusiasm as would be by any professional artistes by the multicultural audience coming from countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh … at Asian Town on the second day of Eid.
Meet Trends-Qatar, a group of more than 40 singers, dancers and musicians, all Indian expatriates from Kerala. Over the two days of Eid al-Adha celebrations held at Asian Town for communities, the members of the music group presented 14 songs, a mix of Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. Some exhilarating high voltage dance moves were also on display on the fast-paced Hindi songs. And the crowd, assembled outside the cricket stadium in hundreds, simply loved it.
“This is our first performance at this big a scale. It is a relatively new group and we have been performing at different community events before this,” Pradeep Menon, the Manager of Trends Qatar tells Community in a chat after their last performance on stage on the second and final day of communities’ celebrations.
A group of 10-12 singers and dancers including the female member of Trends jumped on to the stage for their last performance, Hawa Hawa, an Urdu song, and they enthralled the audience with the power-packed show of music and dance.
Some of the vocalists would jump down and pull the audience into the loop, with many going up in the air with the dancers.
“We launched in January this year as a group of about 7 or 8 friends coming together to initially form the group. They were mostly singers. Some of our members were already members of some groups and knew each other and from there we decided to establish our own group,” says Menon. Now they have about 15 singers including three females in the group and about 20 or more dancers besides back end team, a manager and a photographer. The group spreads the word about its gigs and performances through its Facebook page, Trends.
The members say social media is the fastest way to reach the audiences in Qatar. Most members of the group are already active in the community activities therefore they are well-known within the expatriate communities from South Asia.
“People know us. So reaching people and finding events for us is not a problem. We started in January and we have performed and so many different events such as parties and special occasions besides organising our own gigs,” says the group’s manager.
Menon says they chose Hindi songs for this event keeping in mind that most of the audience were Hindi-speaking. They have singers in the group who can sing in different languages so it is easy for them to cater to many different kinds of audiences.
“We are a mix of professional and amateur singers and artistes. We regularly do our rehearsals every week. We find space for our rehearsals at place of one of the members and gather there to do that,” explains Menon.
Some of their members are so good they have been singing for Malayalam movies and some talent or reality shows back in India. Many companies in Qatar invite them to their events when they are celebrating anything with their workers.
“There are more than 100 community organisations of Indian expatriates here in Qatar working under the aegis of Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) and we connect with them from that platform as well. We are also performing on different shows for Onam celebrations in Qatar,” says Menon.
Some of the members of the group who performed at the event were Siraj Valapad, Siju Nilambur, Nithya Jithu, Mohamed Ashiq Trissur, Fazil Trissur, Ajmal Azeez, Harib Hussain, Ahammed Hashim, Nirmal Pradeep and Mohammed Nisamudheen.
Among other local talents performing on the occasion was the President of Sri Lankan Coordination Council (SLCC) Tenisan De Silva who presented Hindi songs in his solo performance besides the cultural shows presented by the Sri Lankan troupe. 
Many amateur artistes from Nepal and other nationalities also showcased their talent.