A Thali meal should be a certain array of different dishes from rice, vegetable dishes, meats, dals, breads, chutneys, sambars that when arranged on your plate/thali should compliment every other dish on your plate/thali, it can be an art in itself to get the right dishes to go with the rice, meat, dals etc..
i do a Thali of 8-10 different dishes then served on a Thali/plate with a selection of different breads.