Navarathri Golu 2013

I know it is a bit late given that Navarathri came and went almost two weeks ago! Halloween is already here..

This year, yours truly did not make it to all the golus. We visited around 8 golus as a family over the first weekend. The second weekend was interesting this year. 

After watching Sadhguru explain things on Youtube over the last few months, decided to go listen to him talk for an entire weekend and go through his meditation class as well. Friday evening and all of Saturday and Sunday went to that. For the first time in as long as I can remember, there was no Saraswati pooja or Vijayadasami pooja in the house. I did get to learn something very important with respect to meditation on Vijayadasami day! 

Most of these photos were taken using my iPhone. The quality of pictures suggests that the 4 should be replaced with a 5S! 

The doll displays are getting better and better.. you can go through Golu pictures from previous years from some of the same households and you see that 3 steps became 5 and five became seven! A five feet wide step became a 10 feet wide step! 

The dolls are also very different from the usual ones. This year we saw some unique sets. 

The kids are getting creative with a side "golu" of sorts near the big displays. Just felt bad that I could not visit every golu we were invited to. Next year I should train Jr. or the little one to go take pictures with a point and shoot to cover the golus that I miss!

Next stop.. Deepavali! 

Gods for a day

The kids got treated like gods, quite literally on Monday when we went to a Gujrathi family for Navarathri celebrations. 

The ladies in the house line up all the little girls aged 3 to 10 and wash their feet, put flowers, perfumes on them and then do a prayer with the girls treated as the deities!

Needless to say this is followed by some amazing food...

It was a great experience for the kids and they blushed at all the attention.

Truly happy that they are getting an all Indian experience and are not restricted to a simply south Indian Golu tradition. Only in the bay area!

Navarathri 2012 and the grand Golu's

This year we had a very different Navarathri (Navrathri) Golu festival. 

We did not invite anyone to our house because San went to India as soon as the festival began and we had to manage with Daddy's ability to dress the kids up and visit all golu's because they refuse to be dressed up by my mom. 

Given those limitations, did the best I could and if you think their hair could have been combed better or there could have been better necklaces or bangles, yes.. yes.. wholeheartedly agree!

That said, the whirlwind visits to a dozen places in a span of three days was a little too much for me to handle!

Did take photographs of almost all golus except Suja's (sorry!) and put them in a landscape gallery  and  a portrait gallery. So please check out the pictures! It is amazing to see that the golus in the bay area are getting grander and bigger every year. 

Seriously!

Last year I missed the golus because of the hand surgery to remove plate and screws just a day before Golu season started. More than made up for it this year!

You can check out previous golugraphy's for :

2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, ....

The three step ones have become 5 steps and the 5 have become seven and the grandest one went from 7 steps with a width of 5 feet to almost 10 feet! Truly amazing!

Some of the displays created by the kids were really cute and imaginative.. like this cow about to be captured by velociraptors ala jurassic park style in a field of methi grass..

or Vedhaville (my favorite).. why not name a ville after yourself and make it rhyme with your name?

and a hand made set done by a 9 year old..

with a rangoli to go with it! 

It was truly an experience having Jr. sing at most of the Golus and get some really tasty treats for all of us! 

It was also an eye opening experience for my parents to see that culture and tradition are alive and well and realize that just because we celebrate Halloween with great pomp, it does not mean we give up the Navarathri celebrations.

They probably saw what their grand daughters are missing, but still insist on not starting a doll display in our house because of some old ill omen stuff. For the sake of not upseting the kids, we steered the conversation away from that topic. 

We had a great time, not to mention the mege photo session that we had on Sunday!

Indian festivals are a ton of fun. Nothing is less than a day and this one spans 9 days.. so go figure!

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!

Transitions

The MIL has been in India as of the last week. Time moves so fast. It has been a full week since we saw her off at the airport.

This time the kids were all grown up about saying their goodbyes and promised to behave in her absence. They are holding at around 75% of the promise and going down rapidly!

The adults have transitioned as well to the new routines. I have been left without a Yoga partner and have missed the MIL giving me the usual sermon about either not waking up early enough or pushing myself too hard in the room. The new Yoga studio is motivation in itself and have been going regularly just to keep up my promise to the MIL!

San is back in the kitchen working hard to impress the kids the last few days..

On Monday she made Okra curry with Okra that was not ripe enough. Not her fault because that was all the Indian store had, but the little one was brutal.

She could become a judge on the Iron chef program or "Chopped" where she gets to deliver the bad news. The comments and critique were even too hard for me to handle! San put on a brave face and came up with a Tindora Curry the next evening.

The little one said "Before you put it on my plate, I want a taste. I cannot trust your cooking!"

This is what happens when we have grandma letting her sit on the kitchen counter top, encouraging her to taste things as they are being made. On the bright side she did have a taste and say "It is delicious!" and that made San's day! Seriously, with critics like this at home, things are getting a little out of hand.

Today, I made sweet Pongal to celebrate Pongal. She did not have a problem with the taste of the pongal but with the smell of my hand as I took it to her mouth. "I don't like that strong temple like smell in the Pongal!". She was right!

Actually the smell was from the "pachai kalpooram" (edible camphor) that was crushed with my fingers to season the Pongal. The smell was in my hand not the Pongal. We should use the little one at airports instead of sniffing dogs and we will probably make a fortune if we got a cut on what we find!

We are now down to a new but interesting routine.

Wishing each and everyone of you a happy Pongal!!!

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