Moi Virundhu: How Covid has killed the buzz around fundraising feasts

In 2017, M Prabhu, a mobile shop owner, made headlines for starting a business not many had thought about — computerised account-keeping for moi (gifts in cash).

Gifts in cash have always been a ‘serious business’ in Tamil Nadu and Prabhu was just tapping into the huge market of moi virundhu, crowdfunding events organised over a grand feast during Aadi Masam. Aadi is the fourth month in Tamil Calendar that falls between July and August.

The traditional moi virundhu used to be a source of crowdfunding for those fallen on hard times. A family in distress would feed the community in exchange for gifts in cash by the invitees. This favour is supposed to be returned whenever the opportunity arises in future.

With changing times, the traditional feast only started to grow bigger in scale and the wad of money fatter. The custom evolved into an annual feature when families take turns to organise the feast, and raise money that runs into hundreds of crores.

Prabhu’s Moi Tecch, an android app and software service, was a much-needed hi-tech addition to record all details of moi given and received. It soon started making waves. But that was until the pandemic hit the world and the moi market.

Today, both Prabhu and the banquet halls adorn a desolate look. But this wasn’t so a couple of years back.

Not too long ago

“According to the Tamil lexicon of Madras University publication, ‘offering moi’, or ‘writing moi’ refers to a small amount of money being presented in the name of moi to the host and recorded in his register by all the guests who may be his relatives or friends and they attend the ceremonial feast on any auspicious occasion like marriage, earboring or housewarming ceremonies. It is further stated that it is a small amount of expenditure incurred by the guests and they may or may not get back the money,” writes V Karuppaiyan, former Madras University professor, in the journal Indian Anthropologist.

Moi virundhu, according to some, is a recent phenomenon that came into practice in the villages of Thanjavur and Pudukkottai in the 1970s.

At first, such feasts were organised to raise money during difficult times. For instance, if someone is facing problems repaying a loan, or to save crops during a truant monsoon, or to conduct a decent wedding ceremony.

“It is a reciprocal obligation for a person who has taken the gift money from his relatives and friends to attend similar ceremonies when invited which are arranged by them. He is expected to return an equal amount of the gift money or more on the occasion. A person who does not attend such ceremonies if invited, or does not reciprocate the gift money [in equal amounts] is subjected to ridicule and it may even lead to severing of their relationship,” Karuppaiyan says in his article.

According to cultural studies expert Yer Maharasan, initially these feasts were thrown mainly by the Mutharaiyar community. Over the years, people across communities such as Kallars and Paraiyars, too, embraced the practice.

“Since poverty is a problem among all communities, everyone started organising these feasts. However, all of them are not considered quintessential moi virundhu.”

While some moi virundhu, according to Maharasan, are all about economic ostentation and collecting money, other forms of ‘gift-money feasts’ are organised only on particular occasions such as marriage and earboring to meet debts.

“Such occasions become an excuse for raising funds. In other words, when friends and relatives come together to share the economic burden of a person for that particular occasion,” he adds.

While the traditional moi virundhu is called by the same name in Thanjavur and Pudukkottai, in pockets such as Madurai and Theni, it is known as vasantha vizha (spring function), illa vizha (housewarming ceremony), manjal neeraattu vizha (puberty ceremony), etc.

Beast of a feast

Throwing a grand feast is not an easy job anywhere in the world. The task is equally enormous, if not more, for moi virundhu hosts as well. Before announcing a feast, the host has to meet certain conditions. First, the individual must give moi to his relatives for at least three years. Then he should join an already existing team to organise the feast.

“If an individual is rich, he can organise the feast single-handedly. But about 90 percent of feasts are done as a team,” says Kannan, a resident of Senthangudi village, Pudukkottai. Kannan has organised such feasts on four different occasions.

“A person can organise moi virundhu once in five years and that too only in the month of Aadi. Once the team and date of the feast is decided, preparations begin — booking of a mandapam (banquet hall), roping in a money collector to keep records, hiring a cook, buying food provisions, especially the meat, printing and distributing invitations etc.,” Kannan describes the process to The Federal.

Interestingly, the names on invitation cards follow an order based on previous contributions (the amount one has contributed in the past will decide how prominently his name will appear) and the money collected gets divided among the team members accordingly.

Everybody loves a good feast

“Over the course of time, the traditional practice of collecting a small ceremonial amount in cash has developed into a new traditional socio-economic institution to collect huge interest-free repayable money gifts from relatives and friends in the area of Thanjavur and Pudukkottai,” says Karuppaiyan.

It is often compared to the practice of collecting ‘magamai funds’ among the Nadar community, where individuals and institutions contribute to raise funds and use that money to support the underprivileged in their community.

“As far as the socio-economic importance of the ‘gift money’ is concerned, it is treated as a mark of goodwill and participation of one’s own relatives and friends who attend the function and dine in the communal feasts. It is also significant to note that though every guest offers a small amount of gift money to the host, the total amount of the gift money offered by hundreds of guests may raise a sizeable big amount with which the host can compensate part of the expenditure that he incurred in arranging the communal feast on the occasion,” Karuppaiyan adds.

But what was once a culture of sharing burden has now become a means to show off money power, says Kannan.

It is natural for a person who gives moi to others to expect the same kind of respect in return.

“Suppose, I have you given a moi of Rs 500. When you return the gift, you must make the amount double, say, Rs 1,000. The additional Rs 500 will be entered in the ‘Moi Note’, a register to keep moi entries, as puthu nadai (first return),” Kannan breaks down the process.

He adds: “Again, when you are organising a feast the next time, I’m expected to get Rs 2,000 from you and that extra amount will be entered as rendam thadavai (second return). Invitees must attend the feast before 12 pm. If they come later, their moi will be entered as pin varavu (late entry), which is considered an insult to the organisers.”

But it often becomes a vicious chain. “If a person doesn’t reciprocate the moi, his kin and friends name and shame him. To avoid the embarrassment, people often take loans with high interest from insurers. Similarly, if a person has gifted moi in the past but doesn’t organise a feast, he will lose out on money that he is supposed to get in return. Sometimes for the sake of organising a feast, he is forced to take a loan. And if the total amount of moi received is lower than what he has spent on the feast, it again results in losses.”

But such sad realities behind the practice never affected the popularity of moi virundhu.

Moi on silver screen

These feasts found their way into Tamil films as well. Chinna Gounder, a Tamil movie released in 1992, tells the story of Deivanai, a goat herder who finds herself neck-deep in loans taken from an inconsiderate landlord, Sakkarai Gounder, for her sister’s education. When she is unable to return the money, Gounder keeps a condition — either she repays the loan (along with a heavy interest) or sleeps with his brother-in-law. That’s when she decides to organise a moi virundhu.

While the very idea behind organising moi virundhu is to raise money, a comic character equates the tradition to begging. “But instead of going to each and every house, we invite people to our house,” he says. Inviting people to her house for moi is portrayed as a matter of shame.

Critics say it was possible moi virundhu was considered a matter of shame even a few decades ago. But that was in the 1990s. The new millennium saw a change in how people perceived the moi culture. Now, the feasts involve huge banners and publicity. Today, organising moi virundhu has an element of pride attached to it.

Also, gone are the days when such feasts would raise money in hundreds and thousands. In 2019, one such feast raked in Rs 4.5 crore in Pudukkottai district. While around 9,000 guests attended the event, IDBI bank assisted the host team in counting and checking for counterfeit notes. Financial companies are often roped into such moi virundhu for error-free, professional account keeping.

This is exactly why Prabhu felt his app, Moi Tecch, could do wonders and also make money during the feast season.

Hi-tech biz

Before 2017, people mostly maintained a ‘Moi Note’. But human errors — like names and addresses misspelled — often created confusion. Some such errors also included the actual amount of money collected and gifted.

It was to fill in that gap that Prabhu came up with the idea. “We enter the name, address and the amount gifted in a separate tabular format. We also give a receipt to individual contributors. Besides, an SMS is sent to his mobile number. A host can easily search names of contributors area-wise and can return the money as and when the occasion arises. At the end of the function, we also take a printout of all the payments and hand it over to the organisers, says Prabhu, who charges Rs 3,500 per function per team. He sends a team of two for every 500 invitees attending a function.

“One person collects the amount and the other makes entries on the app. Initially, organisers were a bit apprehensive but once we proved how efficient and smooth our system is, we started receiving a lot of orders,” he adds.

Business for Prabhu was going on smoothly until 2018. “First, it was Cyclone Gaja because of which a lot of people lost their livelihood. Then came the Covid-19 lockdown.”

More than anything else, Prabhu says, the pandemic has reduced people’s enthusiasm as well as financial capacity for big feasts.

“There were instances when people planned a feast for 2020 and made arrangements in advance. They lost their money spent on pandal bookings, invitations printed etc.,” says Kannan.

Apart from Covid-necessitated restrictions, Kannan says people are also wary of organising big feasts since they don’t have much money. “Anyone hosting a feast during the pandemic can’t expect much in return.”

Prabhu though seems more annoyed with the restrictions. “The Tamil word ‘moi’ came from ‘moithal’ (swarming). When people throng the moi collection table, the buzz created by the crowd resembles the swarming of bees. But Covid has stopped all that and forced us to maintain social distancing. Where is the buzz in business for us then?” asks Prabhu.