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Entries in seedai (4)

Tuesday
Aug112020

Gokulashtami 2020

This year we are celebrating Gokulashtami in a much simpler way. 

Made some seedai in the morning with some help from San who also made some maladdoos and looked lovely today..

We did a small pooja and did neivedhiyam and deeparadhanai. 

did I mention she looked absolutely lovely today?

This year, one more person dear to us has reached Krishna.. San's grandpa is one with Krishna now! Was thinking of him, even if it was for a brief moment while doing the deepa aaradhanai. 

The kids have stopped dressing up for functions, but their motivation for dressing up is when someone is going to see them dressed up. Parents don't count on that list. Given COVID times, I understood and gave them a pass. There are a few functions they look forward to.. especially when the star of the show is a cute crawling baby, a cute looking elephant, lighting lamps and bursting fire crackers or simply the excuse of "I cant study today because all my books are with Saraswati ummachi". 

We have passed on what we could to the next generation. Feel happy that my kids are aware of traditions. Right now there are kids growing up in Tamil Nadu as well as a lot of young adults who have managed to develop so much self loathing for their own culture and tradition in the name of secularism that is being pushed in their face. The marketing machinery that has gone into over drive in recent times to do this to so many kids at this scale is mind boggling. 

You can accept another's faith without having to show you gave up on your own! This is so much easier to do and understand, especially when you have a concept of god being in every form, shape, size, color, nature and being open to acceptance. I can understand it being a lot harder for religions where the concept is "my way is the only way". 

"Sarva deva namaskaraha Keshavam prathigachathi" is something we say as part of doing Sandhyavandhanam every day.  When you prostrate yourself in front of any god, it all eventually goes to the same god. It is a beautiful message. 

On a totally tangential note, I have been wearing the same 5 "pocket vechcha T-shirts"  in rotation since the lockdown when going out. Inside the house it has been the 60-day challenge shirts in rotation.  Using Krishna's birthday as an excuse, finally put on a new T-shirt from the collection of unopened gifts. 

This one was courtesy of my FIL/MIL or one of San's uncles. Feels good to wear new clothes every now and then! Apparenlty after eating everything I do look like a blue whale. 

A very happy Gokulashtami to everyone. I know that given the technicality of the calendar a lot of folks celebrate Krishnas birthday in early September this year. An advance Gokulashtami wish to them!  

Sunday
Sep022018

The thinking cap.. or thread.. is on!

Last weekend was interesting. It was the beginning of a lot of festivities. First the ladies celebrated Varalaskshmi vritham on Friday. We had a lot of friends and family visiting us in the evening. 

Had to fly out on Saturday afternoon and was initially very disappointed because the thread changing ceremony which I look forward to every year was on Sunday/Monday based on an earlier conversation with my parents. 

Was also looking forward to chatting with my nephews... all three of them who had their Upanayanam ceremony this summer. 

When I told my mom that I will miss the ceremony and spend the day on a plane and given I lose 15 hours due to time difference, the days and times don't count. My dad said in a matter of fact voice "change the thread before you leave or after you come back. I will tell you when. Something is better than nothing!". Then went on their usual gripe about travel, priorities in life, a persons reasoning, am I doing this travel for money or for some higher purpose, money is not the priroity,  etc. etc. 

As it turned out the actual day for the ceremony was Saturday and Sunday. So I got up bright and early on Saturday and changed my Poonal (refered to as thread in this blog over the years).

Wife and MIL had plenty of Idly batter from the previous day and made me Idly and also some Pongal. Was going to fast the rest of the day on the plane and do Gayathri Japam on the plane if possible. 

My parents were happy after seeing that picture. I pretty much slept through the plane ride and after reaching the hotel, took a shower, sat down facing the setting sun in the 20th floor of a hotel room and recited the gayathri mantra a 1008 times. My nose was blocked after the flight thanks to United freezing us in mid flight but it didn't stop me. Ate a few more of the packed idlis and went to sleep. 

Had severe headaches the rest of the trip and finally made it back. Went to do yoga and as usual the new white thread catches peoples eyes before I walk into the room and a person asks "what is the meaning of that?". 

So I went on the usual "It is something that a particular sect from India wears as a mark of their commitment to learning and the pursuit of knowledge." then after a few more questions and answers later (by this time I have a practical FAQ on the thread aka poonal written inside my head and the answers come with practiced ease), there was a bonus question. "Is it passed on by birth only or can anyone wear this thread and do the ceremony? You tell me that you are still into research and development and pride yourself on learning and I get it, but you are no longer doing priest stuff right? So why wear this thread?" 

When the question is asked in English with a Japanese accent from an innocent and sincere face, I felt my FAQ needed a re-write!

Told her that as far as I knew, most of the folks who wear the thread were born into the families of brahmins, but there are lot of instances of folks accepting the thread and pursusing a brahmin life. I still had not answered the second part of the question.. why still wear it if you are not doing prayers every day like a priest?

The bell rang and I walked into the hot room. We were 55 minutes into the 90 minute class and were going from standing series to floor series to get a 2 minute break lying down staring at the ceiling in dead body pose. I was way too alive for those two minutes as my brain was trying to consisely summarize what definied a person as a brahmin, more specifically what defined me in my own opinion (that level of restricting the question should have an easy answer). Forget the rest of the world Sundar.. what makes you a Brahmin in your own mind?

So I tried to summarize with my fingers the bullet points of what I valued as Brahmin, lying there staring at the ceiling, counting with my thumb against the tips of my fingers. 

a. Value knowledge over everything else

    1. Keep an open mind

    2. respect your teacher above anything else

    3. keep learning no matter what your age

    4. don't keep that learning to yourself. . . teach people whenever possible (and I was smiling thinking...

        unless restricted by IP licenses and legal contracts)

    5. Question things.

        i. If the answers don't make sense keep questioning

        ii. don't accept an answer because it is convenient

        iii. don't reject an answer because it is beyond your comprehension at that time.

b. Don't chase money, power or crave social acceptance

    1. Knowledge and and education are more important than being rich or powerful

    2. spare no effort to make sure your kids get the best education (something that was passed on from

        parents and relatives)

    3. value knowledge and money will come. Value money and ignorance and arrogance will come.

c. Be obsessive compulsive when it comes to cleanliness

    1. if there is one thing that is common to all the rules to follow growing up in a Brahmin family it is the love

        for cleaning oneself obsessively and learning to love it..

    2. be careful with what you eat and how you clean things before eating (goes to vegetarian choice, cleaning

        the floor before putting plates or eating from banana leaves, drinking from glasses where you dont touch

        the glass with your lips, sharing food with others in same plates etc.. ).

Almost looks like folks came up with elaborate rules after some epidemic that was spread by human contact or through food and the rules stayed with the survivors of the epidemic and became the POR or BKM.. (Process Of Record , Best Known Method for folks who are wondering..)

d. Follow the rules

    1. Be it the rituals to follow during prayers (it is more like a training for you to know that following rules is important, maybe some rules are made by the priest and others are made by your wife.. but follow the rules you must)

    2. or the rules in daily life. If there is a rule of law follow it or work to change it

e. Respect 

    1. everyone for what they do. I do see a lot of folks with the thread falter on this one. If you do have good guidance and great teachers, you will know that respecting everyone for what they do is the right way. 

    2. respect yourself (you realize this as part of the daily ritual after getting the thread)

    3. respect the thread and what it reminds you of and what it stands for

Visions of my grandfather kept coming to me and I had tears for no reason just thinking of him. I would constantly try to be a pain in the ass asking him 20 questions per minute and he would sit in the backyard in the evening and explain things to me one at a time with infinite patience while taking some Tulasi and green camphor, crush it and hold it under my nose to clear my blocked nose so I could ask him more questions without suffering.. 

My kids never ask me any such questions. They seem to have some intuitive understanding of who they are and are comfortable with who they are..

I was all set to have more detailed answers for the next time someone asked me questions.. 

Then came the funny side of life. Does this come in different sizes? you used to have a smaller thread.. this one is much larger! it was true. Somehow the priest who gave me this thread has given me a much longer poonal. 

was going to say "It comes in S, M, L and XL. Somehow I got the XL but given I already changed it, going to stick to it till next year and go back to M" but turth is most of the time I have seen only two sizes, a kids size and adult size.. For some reason this time I have a much longer one.

Have to go ask my dad for answers!

Every year around this time there is a lot of festivities. Today happens to be Janmashtami, Krishna's birthday. There is more stuff to eat and a prayer to be said in the name of Krishna.. 

My stomach is returning to normal again just in time and that is great news..

MIL has outdone herself this year with some treats!

Being Brahmin and wearing a poonal should not stop with just wearing it and doing Sandhyavandanam.. to me it means knowing how to make seedai, experimenting with it, passing on what I learned and most importantly washing my hands before eating the seedai! 

Sunday
Sep062015

Festival season is here

Last week we celebrated a few things. Friday was Varalakshmi pooja for San, and the weekend was the thread changing ceremony for me. 

The idea behind the Varalakshmi pooja is that the women pray to the goddess for their husbands long life with the tacit assumption that a long life for the hubby is a good thing for the entire family. What really happens actually in those 24 hours, on the day of the pooja would put any Jack Bauer season to shame, given the amount of twists and turns that happen during the event.

This year the camera never came out to take pictures of the kids after the function. We should have them dress up tomorrow and take a picture to add to this collection. Also this year, for the first time in a long time, I was hale and healthy during August. August has never been good to me for unknown reasons. My parents used to dread the month because as a child I had maybe 1 or 2 normal days in August. This year my health has seen a welcome change!

The day after Varalakshmi pooja, the plan was for me to go do Yoga early, come back to take a shower and do the thread changing ceremony. That did not work out as planned, as we had slept late the previous night after all the festivities and I snored away till 6 AM.  A little over three hours later, finished the thread changing and completed repeating the Gayathri manthra a 1008 times. This year, I did it in the backyard, because it was very pleasant outside. Was almost in a trance and was very calm and serene. Went to yoga class right after that and it made quite a difference. If you sit and meditate for 2 hours and then go do yoga, the breathing comes easy! Unfortunately that cannot be repeated on a daily basis given the usual work and home schedule. 

The work week rolled past quickly and yesterday was Gokulashtami. A birthday celebration for Krishna. Wife and kids did the usual welcome by drawing baby feet that come into the house and take Krishna right to the treats.

For Christian friends who read this blog, this is the desi equivalent to keeping cookies and milk for Santa and posting a sign near the chimney that says "this way to cookies". Our kids didn't have any doubts of Santa coming down to eat cookies and leaving them gifts when they were young. Think of Gokulashtami as Krishmas. In Krishmas, the gift is the FOOD! 

When I walked into the house, my first thought was "Looks like Krishna is developing an arch support problem and needs to do more awkward pose.".  My criticism of the feet was received poorly by the three girls.

We made some sweets and savories for the little god (and our two little gods) to enjoy. This year, I took some shortcuts and made rava seedai instead of the regular ones and some Thattai. Went mild on the salt and chilli so the kids can eat. Apparently they like it "a little more spicier than this".

The little one said "the look, texture and crispiness is all fine, but it needs more spice". In short she gave me a B+ at best. 

We have ten more days to go before celebrating the elephant god's brithday with a different genre of sweets. Just thinking of that is making my mouth water. Travel does kill a lot of the festival season fun and it is going to be no different this year.

For now, it is time to finish off the current stock of sweets and savories before the next bunch comes in. The kids have come to the conclusion that all these celebrations of god birthdays back to back in August/September is just an excuse for families to get together and make different specialty foods at least once a year. Told them "yep, that is pretty much it".

Next year, I am going to make sure they know how to make some of this stuff themselves.

Friday
Aug102012

What a week!

After visiting doctors, labs and pharmacies for the front end of the week, the later part of the weekdays were just spent surviving the days. 

The routine was wheeze from 11PM to 5AM, go to bed at 5AM and be woken up by a work phone call or the kids, get some idea of time and space and go to work by 9, struggle through the day and come home. 

Survived till 2PM, 3PM and managed to work till 4:30 today. So that is improvment on the stamina side of things.

The breathing is still iffy at best and have found that sleeping in the sitting position till exhaustion takes over is the best strategy. 

Krishna Ummachi's birthday came and went without me doing anything of significance. Being able to partake a few of the dishes in sample quantities was my contribution to the function. As a rule of thumb it is very difficult to even be sick in this house with the parents and MIL present and having the kids in the house with no school.

You come home at 2:30 and want to go sleep and 

a. Parents come out all concerned and give you two suggestions every 5 minutes (usually the same suggestion with a time lag) on how to improve your situation. Most of these are not going to help in anyway as they will be things I have already tried or know won't make a difference.

b. MIL will either join with parents with the concern or try to push me the other way with some enthusiasm. "Let's go back to the hot room and you will be fine!" she will say and off I will go and barely survive the session. That is better than the first option to some extent. 

c. The kids who are not used to seeing daddy gasp for air will try to wake me up every 15 minutes in an attempt to cheer me up. Let's go biking daddy! Let's go to the park daddy! etc. etc. Their idea is that if I do physical activity the lungs will forget the problem. Little do they know that going outside itself is an ordeal now..

and of course how can we forget d.. or di or my own little Kolaveri di.. 

d. San will come home from work to check on me and declare "if you can pick up the phone and answer a work call or participate in a meeting even on mute, you can help the kids with the Kumon or go back to work. today is the last day I am losing sleep because you won't rest during the day and wheeze all night!" Well, she has her point and so does everyone else in the house.

The best thing I actually did was realize that there was no place where rest was possible.. not at work, not at home. So parked the van under a tree near the house and slept there one afternoon for a couple of hours. That was a great move! 

The weekend is here and for starters got my mind off of things and started browsing old pictures from the Canon Powershot S30 days with the kids. Found a few JPG's that were interesting and processed them on Photoshop and uploaded them to the Galleries. 

In case you only read the blog on reader... do checkout the Galleries tab at www.sundar72.com

Here are some samples...

Hanuma bay in Hawaii when we visited for two days en route to Australia in 2004!

Bryce canyon in Utah.. We were there the day the Tsunami hit and did not know as we were cut off from civilization!


Took this one with one hand while parasailing in Seattle right around Sunset!

There are more pictures. Going to start a new tab in the website called "The story behind the pictures" and explain the photograph in more detail. Maybe it will be of some use to other Photographers in training...

More tomrorow..

Until then, I will pray for better breathing, something we all take for granted all the time!