Of customs and celebrations

August marks the beginning of the festival euphoria in India. As a child, I loved the second half of the year. School days would be generously sprinkled with holidays, the break for Diwali being the longest. The festivities at home were the most-awaited ones. The days leading up to an important festival like Ganesh Chaturthi or Janmashtami would throw the household into a frenzy mode of procuring the best ingredients for a 5-course meal, flowers, and other sundry pooja material.

We kids, of course only eyed the goodies prepared by the grandma and mom, waiting to dig into them. We could not eat them without offering them first to the Lord, of course. Tempted, furtive glances would be thrown at the spread of dishes; a great mix of sweet and savouries. Every now and then I'd loiter into the kitchen and pooja room to see how far the pooja had progressed only so I could appease my growling tummy and impatient sweet tooth.

Wisps of memories cloud my mind filling it with a bright tapestry; of the colourful decoration of the idol with flowers, the scent of incense stick mixed with the heady camphor-filled aarti, the hurried pace in the household; of Amma effortlessly ramping up energy, dishing out a scrumptious elaborate meal with the extra set of dishes for the naivedyam (customary offering to the deity) before aarti time; of her, in between all this, shooing us away from the sacred space of the deities gently admonishing us to first have a shower and then step inside.

Today, the tables are turned. As an adult and a parent, I realize being on this side of the scene is not as much fun. Festivals now bring in a dull feeling of dread, of impending duties towards the Lord above and mortals below and a self-imposed pressure to conform to the customs and rituals of yore. The responsibilities of the usual household chores, working in tandem with the child's school and spouse's work schedules, my own work deadlines, putting food on the table, all have a cascading effect and there's not much energy or enthusiasm left to walk that extra mile on special days.

I can picture my granny chiding me for all the drama and fuss I'm creating. She'd say at your age we did so much more and never felt the need to crib. True that. The next generation, though, pertaining to my mother and mother-in-law, seem to understand my predicament and empathise. They ask me to take it easy and do just the bare minimum for a festive occasion although they themselves did all of what the grandma generation did along with holding a full-time job.

I'm tempted to give up easily and do just a superficial show of celebration. I did that when I was pregnant with the child and couldn't run around much. I did that when the child was an infant and toddler citing reasons of not having enough hands to run the circus. Now that all the stages of acceptable excuses have been crossed, I'm forced to sit down and contemplate about my role as a torch-bearer of customs and traditions.

I think of all the times when I've placed a frantic call to the mother to ask for recipe proportions or to confirm about the rituals before a festival. I still do not hold the key to traditional recipes or niche preparations and look for simpler alternatives; the checklists before a traditional ceremony or occasion are always a blur and mixed-up. I wonder whom the next generation will approach when they hit similar roadblocks. Will I be able to answer satisfactorily about the why's and how's of a custom and rattle off the list of items to be ticked off the preparatory charts? I suspect I know the answer already. Perhaps the next generation will have an even more watered down approach and might not even bother to keep up. Time will only tell.

All that I realise and want for now is to create similar memories for R as he grows up. For him to associate the festivities with the folklore and tales of mythology, to fall back upon those during the times of being alone, away from family and friends; to stumble upon rare nostalgic memories if and when he chooses to follow old customs. The memories I create for him today may not be as rich or flavourful as they were for me. Nevertheless, they would be spun from similar fabrics of fun, bonding, laughter, family, and companionship.

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What memories do festivals invoke for you? Do you follow the accompanying rituals and customs?

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Of movie, celebrations,good food and some musings

Only someone who has been living under the rocks would have missed knowing that yesterday was the International Women's Day. The husband and I, on the other hand, celebrate this day each year without fail. Not because the husband is extremely conscious of this day and chooses to make it special for his lady, but because, we chose to get married on this day!

So, the celebrations included watching Kai Po Che and a lovely dinner. I had read the book- The three mistakes of my life on which the movie is based- a few years ago and don't really remember how much I liked it. So, cannot say whether the movie is better than the book or not. All I can say is I liked the movie. Some lovely acting, good cinematography, realistic depiction and no melodrama.

The Savvy-Savannah Sinclairs was a new restaurant we tried out for dinner and were not disappointed. While the Ala-carte menu seemed a little limited, the food was really good.

This year we completed six years of married life. Don't know whether to make a big deal out of it or not. It is after all the quality time spent together that matters. Talking of which, I find it difficult to remember when was the last time the husband and I sat down for a quiet chat. The background always seems to have the little one chattering and clamouring for attention. Especially and more so when he sees us settle down to talk!

Talking of numbers, this blog crossed 50,000 views yesterday. I began the year with the resolution to read, write and travel more. The first quarter results doesn't seem very promising. I haven't been writing as much I thought I should be. The enthusiasm and creativity seems to be fading away. On the reading front, I got my hands on the third book of the Shiva trilogy-The Oath of the Vayuputras and I'm on it. This makes it the third book in the past three months and while it may not sound like an awesome statistic, it makes me feel a little better. I am doing better than before. I have, sadly, nothing to update on the travel front.

So, folks, that's all the mumbo-jumbo from my end. Wishing you all a happy weekend!

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Celebrating Diwali

Diwali is here. Usually, I am at my parent's place around this time of the year. This is the first time in five years that I am celebrating the festival of lights in my house with just the three of us and a whole lot of friends to compensate for our family. And, this also meant, I had to indulge in the usual pre-Diwali preparations which included making of the Diwali sweets and savouries that I'd conveniently skipped so far at the parents' house.

However, I was pretty excited from the word go and was looking forward to buying diyas, decorative lights, sprucing up the home and even making the bakshanams (the sweets and savouries). Last week was a whirlwind activity of polishing off the dust and clutter from the house. There was a donation drive in our complex and I happily gave away some old clothes to under-privileged children. I planned ahead and shopped for the lovely lights, decorative diyas and ready-to-make rangoli design moulds. These moulds are a big boon for people like me who can only look wistfully at lovely rangolis in front of other creative folk's houses because we cannot draw even straight lines, leave alone make a flowery design!

So, here we are:  (excuse the poor photography, I blame the camera ;-)

 

R dancing away to glory

Fireworks

I successfully prepared some traditional sweets and savouries, after some sweat and effort. So, yay to that!
I was not too keen on buying and bursting crackers but had to give in to hubby and R's excitement levels. R thoroughly loved watching the colourful fireworks. We had a small get-together in our complex a day before Diwali, with yummy food stalls, art and handiwork for display and sale, exciting games and the famous housie. I never ever win at Housie, yet buy the tickets religiously each time. There is some weird fun and excitement in anticipating the number on your tickets to be called out. While, this time too I did not win at the Housie, I won a gift voucher at a musical quiz. So, that made my day :-)

So, how did you guys celebrate Diwali? Wishing you all a fun-filled, prosperous and safe Diwali!

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What's up?

After a blogomanic month of August, only two post so far in September seems like a low. Well, I am alive and kicking. No one asked though, but I thought I can dispense with this information. An update of last week/weekend should explain my absence from the blogosphere.

Two days after my return from a vacation to Hyderabad, my parents arrived. Not unannounced of course :-) I was awaiting their arrival for awhile now and that too with an eagerness of a child awaiting his/her coveted gift. Needless to say that I am enjoying myself, not to mention R who continues to get pampered, and is now actually showing signs of becoming a spoilt brat.

While on the note of R and his grandparents being around, we are witnessing a good deal of change in him. He is definitely getting naughtier and more stubborn by the day. A foreboding of having to deal with the inevitable terrible twos is clouding my senses. The change isn't quite sudden and dramatic as I put it but this particular incident has definitely set alarm bells ringing, loud enough to startle the person next to me, in my head. Now, we parents are of those kinds who do not really indulge in buying too many toys for the little brat. We do not mind spending money on any amount of books but toys come home at a lower frequency rate. We have also never experienced any tantrums in a toy shop so far when we would at times have to say no to R's demands. Distracting him has also been not too difficult. So, this incident left me perplexed, nudged me out of my utopian reverie where kids who throw a fit in a store are always someone else's and landed me in a this-cannot-happen-to-me moment. (this is not to be confused with putting-on-an-air of perfect parenting.)

Coming to the incident:  ever since the time my parents came home, there has been some talks of my mother wanting to buy a tricycle or the likes for R. The other day, my parents, R and I went to buy some groceries at a near by store. The store also stocks other items like toys and other fancy stuff. While we were busy checking out a few things, R found a ride-a-car toy and promptly mounted on that. What was surprising was that he did not call out to me, instead he called out for pati and said, "Pati, car..car..". Kids!!! The said toy seemed a little old, dusty and not worth the price tag. Also, there was no other fresh stock available. So, I tried to distract him by saying he'll get one the next day (one that usually works). But not this time. He bawled, rolled on the ground to my horror. As I dragged him away, my mother, the doting pati, said she'll probably buy some other toy/book to mollify R. I was still recovering from the initial shock of dealing with my first public toddler meltdown, so acquiesced. R went next to the toys counter and pulled out three toys and insisted on playing with all of them on the shop floor. We managed to put back all but one toy onto the rack. R held on to the one toy with all his might and didn't let go of it even at the time of billing, much to the cashier's amusement and my embarrassment. Not sure, if this is temporary or clear symptoms of the onset of the terrible twos.
Hmm..will wield the stick later. Now it's time for some grandparent time and of course carrots.

It has been celebration time for a couple of days now. Our apartment complex celebrated Onam, as other festivals alike, with great grandeur. Since the festival fell on a weekday, the cultural fest was held on Sunday. The festivities that included rangoli (pookalam) competition for the adults, drawing competition for the children, cultural programs that saw adults and children perform with equal elan and grace, culminated in a grand Onam feast. Traditional dance numbers, peppy and melodious Malayalam solo songs, group songs, all together interspersed with a quiz session on Kerala and Onam made the event enjoyable even for the non-mallus.

I entered the second year on the wrong side of the 30s a couple of days ago. B'day celebration is generally in the form of a lunch/dinner at a restaurant. This time, hubby presented the idea of a couple dinner minus the kid since my parents were around. The idea appealed to me since it was quite sometime since we got some time for ourselves and my parents too agreed immediately to the proposition. So, thanks to them, we, the hubby and me, ended up having a nice time actually having a proper conversation (after what seems like ages) over good food and ambience. Cheers!

So, guys, I am back!

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