Gallivanting with Ganesha!!!

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India

Gallivanting with Ganesha!!!

Hey all..it’s Ganesh Chaturthi today…
so a small write up from me depicting my childhood celebrations of this most awaited festival..I am sure all my friends would relate to this.
Pardon my lingo for today…I will be typing few words in Tamil,Telugu, Marathi and Kannada.
My very own South Indian integration!!
I am proud to be a Banglorean wherein one gets used to hear all languages being spoken.

It’s the Ganapati season and I am missing the celebrations at my hometown or should I say the most happening place for me in the world, my dear dear dear Bengaluru!!!
Far far away from home….Ohhh I miss the pomp and grandeur which always accompanies our dear Golu Polu..our Lord Gajanana…on his Mooshika Vahana (for those of you not familiar with the South Indian lingo…it’s the vehicle/friend on which all our Indian deities are associated with, in this case the Mooshik or the Undir as Maharastrians call it or in plain simple terms..The Mouse..)

So coming back to our friend, our saviour and the beginner of all auspicious things, our lovely, chubby, elephant headed God, in a cute attire, balancing Modaks( also called Kozhukattai in Tamil) visiting our houses according to the mythology and the tradition of bringing in a statue of the Lord and celebrating his birthday.
I won’t go into the details of the exact origin and the importance of this festival, just want to emphasize how important the birthday of this Ekadanta (Single tusked), Skandapurvaja (Elder brother of Lord Karthikeya), Parvathi Putra, Varasidhhi Vinayaka (Bestower of boons and success) is to us.
I have grown up seeing the celebrations in my city and in the  southern parts of India and once had the opportunity of witnessing the pompous celebrations in Mumbai, where the Lords birthday is the most important thing for any Mumbaikar akin to the way the Lord’s mother, the Goddess Durga is worshipped and celebrated in Kolkata as Durga puja.
Talking of the celebrations for Vinayaka Chaturthi, I am sure all my friends will relate to…
My childhood memories…..
The celebrations would begin much  before the actual festival, in the form of cleaning the puja room and  the murtis (idols) of the gods and the goddesses and the preparation of mouth watering  savouries… aahhhaaaaaa the crispy murukkus..the sweet tasting adhirasams,the kajjikaais and laddoos specially made out of rava….the list is endless.
The previous day would be spent in cleaning up the house and the  veranda( In my native place in Andhra, special cow dung mixture would be delivered to our houses in the evening which would then be splashed onto the front porches of our homes and set to dry with special instructions given to us  kids, to not step on it and dirty the house ;-p )
A traditional, bigguhhh Kolam (rangoli) sometimes with a small Ganesha picture in the centre or with wishes of Happy Ganesh Chaturthi writings would be drawn out with expertise.
The festival would begin with us waking up early morning, and  having a nice leisurely bath, while mummy and granny would be slogging in the kitchen having woken up at the break of dawn and making the necessary arrangements for the puja and also making sure we are ready in our new clothes on time for the puja, with hot mugs of Kaapi…(that is  how we like to pronounce our coffee!!:-p ) doing the rounds to dad,with mummy and granny fasting till the puja ends. Adorned in our brand new dresses, it was our job to place the flowers on the Gods which was undertaken by us  children with the utmost feeling of a grown ups responsibility and then we would accompany our dad to go to the Market to select and bring our Ganesha home. Wow what a sight at the market!! Ganeshas of all sizes,small,medium and big,  name it and you get it sizes!! All colourful and with accompanying accessories of the sacred Durva
grass used for puja and the colourful lights, sometimes being sold as a package complete with marigold flowers, puja  grass,coconuts and banana plants. My favourite fruits, pears and wood apple ( bael fruit ) would be available only during the ganapati season (as kids, we would rub in salt and chilli powder and gulp it down..the tasty, tangy flavour….oohhhh makes my mouth water even now with the mere thought of it.)
We would quickly go about choosing one idol of the Lord and bringing him home. Mummy and granny would be waiting having kept the prasadams ready.
The Lord would then be seated in a special place made for him similar to the Crib made for Lord Jesus Christ, sometimes on a larger scale as seen in a pandal specially erected for the Lord. The puja would begin, normally done by the elders or at times a priest would be called to conduct the rituals.
The entire house would be filled with religious chants, the most famous shlokam being “Shuklam baradharam” amidst the ringing of bells and the sweet smelling fragrant agarbattis and dhoop sticks.

The offerings to the lord would begin…
The kitchen would have been a crazy sight….with Uddina/Masala vadais been fried and Kozhukattais with sweet fillings, ranging from groundnuts and jaggery to freshly grated coconuts, stuffed and steamed in rice flour, to the sweet smelling Payasam/Kesari bath and the famous Sundal ( that’s boiled and fried chickpeas) a very very very famous south Indian prasadam and not to forget the main menu..steaming hot freshly made Lemon rice..( a standard dish made during all festivals and offered in all temples as prasadam, which curiously always, always, tastes best when served in temples and try as much as we can, can never get the same taste when made at home 😦 Followed by the ever so tempting Sambhar loaded wid drumsticks, brinjals and all vegetables,you name it you have it, served with steaming white rice followed by the humble potatoes at their best, accompanying the menu to please the Lord and not to forget the varieties of salads, called as  Kosambri in kannada..( a tasty mixture of moong dal and cucumber)
How can I forget our ever loving, the two main items, without which any south Indian meal would be incomplete…The eternal Papad and the tasty mango Pickle ( both of which are sometimes home made or sometimes store bought), the papad so lovingly fried by our granny, always ensuring we keep our hands off it while it’s been fried :-p
Each item would then be placed in a special plate adorned with a banana leaf in small small quantities and offered to the Lord..The lucky God, who gets to taste all those yummy foods would then be invited to our houses with a song and an aarti.
Mummy would then help us arrange our school books in front of the Lord and apply Kum kum to the them and place flowers and worship the books.
The puja would end with us taking the aarti and us children falling at the Lords feet ( a Shastanaga namaskara…and maskafying the lord to bless us with good marks so that we would get the much awaited video game) and also touching our elders feet for blessings and be tipped by our grandparents with small pockety money and then the festivities would begin…

We would be given prasadam from the Lords offerings and then plates would be arranged with all the savouries accompanied by fruits and sweets and then we children would be given the task of running off to our neighbours houses with the mouth watering delicacies to distribute them. The neighbour aunty would then give each of us a Kozhukattai /modaks and we would run off to catch a glimpse of the Ganesha decorations at their home and go home with plates filled with the return sweets.
Once this was completed and all the neighbours houses covered, we would go with our friends to visit the nearby pandals and see the idols decorations, running back home in time for the special lunch. Our already filled tummies would try to stuff in more of the food…and end up like mini Ganeshas, followed by an afternoon seista for the elders but never ending chatter and games for us children and stories told by granny about the origin of this festival.

The evening aarti would be carried out and the Ganesha idol taken for immersion, the Ganesha normally is kept in houses sometimes for a week or in huge pandals it’s usually a few days. It was told to us that the  number of days you keep the idol at home, the Lord should be treated with delicious prasadam or offerings and tasty treats of some kind as it is not good to keep the Lord hungry. The Lord would be then be immersed the same day or the next day after the puja.

There is a famous spot in Bangalore called Ulsoor lake…with hundreds and hundreds of people going in to immerse the Lord and praying to the Lord to visit us again next year, knowing that the Lord is ever prevalent and with us always and thus we always evoke the friendly elephant Lord and seek his blessings at the beginning of all occasions…hence rightly said….
Sarvakaryeshu sarvada!!

Pssssttt…special thanks..
1.To my MA…for the term “Gallivanting”..having never heard of it..which when was used by her, had me scurrying in search of a dictionary or wiki to find out what it meant..:-p
2.To Revathi, Ruchi and Rashmi…yess the three Musketeers who lent me their pictures…thank you guys…
3.My friends for always making time to go through my crazy random writings and giving their expert comments…;-)

Happy Feet!!

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Humor

I am sure all of you must have come across articles featuring the feel and the healing touch of our hands..Palms to be more precise..How our two tiny little hands, help us out with our day to day activities and stories of  having the healing touch or having held a baby so dearly, but have you ever wondered about our Feet???Ok, let’s not make this hands versus feet thing or an essay, on the importance of feet!! This is just to remind us of how important our two marching soldiers, carriers of our enormous frames are treated by people…The scenarios…

Take the example of an overweight person..Running! Jogging! Skipping!! In order to reduce his/her tummy, arms and bottoms, but putting the most pressure on his two feet!! Just to get his flab moving and wobble around a bit, but who takes the brunt of it all?? His two tiny feet!!! Which devoid of any fat yet, is subjected and succumbs to the countless skips and endless jogs…

Ever thought about the hawker or the fruit vendor who loaded with an entire cart of goods moves from house to house, lane to lane, selling his wares and indirectly taxes his poor feet, which do their duty silently and enable him to travel without spending an extra rupee and help him feed his family. The same goes for the cycle rickshaw pullers or the hand cart pullers who, for a meagre sum, cycle/run around with kilograms and kilograms of human weight, piled up in their rickshaws…

Spare a thought for our very own house maid, who walks miles and miles every day, sometimes twice a day, so that our houses are all spick and span, running up and down our stairs drying clothes,  fetching water, watering our plants, mopping, cleaning, everything! Up and about on her two feet, which are always utmost cracked and fissured, resting and finding comfort in her torn and umpteen times mended rubber footwear…

Ever wondered about the  bus conductor, who mounts and dismounts several people in a course of a day, through the many trips the bus takes, to and forth, between various destinations. In spite of having a special seat reserved for him, he readily offers his seat, to the women or the elderly passengers boarding his bus and moves about on his two feet standing for long durations which ultimately subjects him to pain in the form of varicose veins, all for what?? Selflessly helping!!

Ok, now this may sound more of a medical journal but could not help noting it…

The curious case of the chronic smoker, who not only harms people around him and his lungs but also subjects his feet to chronic pain and severe cramps over a course of time, setting off a chain reaction involving his arteries or the uncontrolled diabetic  who cries over a lost toe..Who takes the pain?? The feet!!

What about the new born..?? First the nurses, then the parents, then the relatives, all first lookout and count the number of toes and fingers and cringe if the baby is found with a missing toe or an additional one, any one of which, if, god forbid the baby had, would subject the parents to trauma and the baby to endless tests to rule out genetic conditions.10 toes!! A pretty number! Happy parents and a smiling baby!! That’s what everyone wants..

Ok, Imagine ourselves, walking on the beach, our feet sinking into the smooth sand underneath or just standing and watching as the waves splash us and retract back, sinking our feet even more deeper or the ‘N’ number of times as a child, we demolished each other’s sand castles or ran away every time the waves approached us or the times we mimicked the crabs, walking sideways or bent occasionally during play or on long walks to collect shells pricking our feet…

Finally, take the case of us Women…Oh!! Who wouldn’t love to get pampered and looked upon on?? And if it involves pampering our feet, even better!! So, it is not as if the feet are always subjected to torture and pain. Credit goes to us women for the invent of pedicures (which the men folk are increasingly getting interested in these days) the splurging involved??? Now that is another story!! 🙂  Nothing compared to a happy and scrubbed feet!!

They say a man is judged by the footwear he adorns, then what about his feet??? Which embrace his footwear irrespective of being bought from a big show room for hundreds of rupees or off the footpath for a hundred rupees!! Aren’t they (the feet) entitled to a little love and affection too?? So, a little pampering of our own personalised chariots, a little care, an occasional scrub and lots of love to our twinkly toes and bingo! We are up and about on our HAPPY FEET!!!

Key to Happiness

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Just thoughts

In life what matters is the fact that you find someone who loves you despite the changes of time, in good and in bad and in happy times and in lows of life.
People seldom seem to remember that the first impression or sometimes the subsequent impressions are the ones which the other persons hold on to and as time passes, as people change, it gets difficult for the people around them especially the closed ones to understand these changes and that is when  fights and quarrels emerge. Wouldnt it be so nice if people continued to retain that innocence!! That quality, the first impressions which made others fall in love with them in the first place! Then, there would be no room for fights ,hatred ,anger and despair.
I have often pondered, as they say, yesss!! the grass seems to be greener on the opposite side, so?! how would it feel being on the opposite side???The same!!!U go out looking for betterment in others but don’t realise that the betterment begins within you!! You can maybe try changing others ,one or two things but in vain so whats the next thing to do??I feel it’s better to bend than to  break, so you compromise and live and then realise gradually that there’s  no point expecting and waiting for the changes to  occur, maybe the changes should stem from within you, so better change yourself, become immune to hatred and fights, try to calm your innerself, try not to counter question everything around you, you are not god!! You don’t have an answer or a solution or an explanation for everything that is happening around you, so it is wise to sit back and let things unfold their own way. As they say, we  haven’t taken the entire responsibility to change everything around us, nor can we sit and please everyone around us! At times it’s better to let go off things which are not in our hands and if we are able to do a little significant something  that itself is good enough and  sometimes it’s best to just lie back and watch, it’s not called being selfish, it’s just a way of life. Even if you weren’t there, the world would still exist and any happenings would be carried out even in your absence, so why fret and crib and cry when things don’t go your way or  why even ponder over it endlesslyy??Jus let it go…the key to happiness maybe lies within  ourselves. Calm yourself and let things
unfold their own way, that might result in a better and calmer and more peaceful self.