For the Love of the Flag!

Jan 26th 2010 – The 61st Republic Day of India. Indians celebrated it all over the globe, this grand day when our constitution was formed. This day made India. Infact there was even a function organized by our guys to celebrate it in the city where I work too. So with “Jai Hind!” I proceed…

How exactly do we celebrate it in India nowadays? When I was in school, there used to be a mandatory attendance required for flag hoisting and everyone of us were proud to stand there for the whole function and get candies in the end. Same was the case with Independence Day. But later in college what happened was “the mandatory” was removed! So many of them would not show up! Later when I joined the IT Company it’s even worse. There is no republic day celebration, no flag hoisting nothing! They enjoy the freedom though! Yes in our history classes we have read a big deal about this flag. What amazes me is as part of this field wherever we travel we do celebrate that country’s Independence Day with all fun and party. Atleast in the US we do.

This makes me think is it because of the fun and family involvement? Yes here Independence Day is all about barbeque (even in the office they do!), family union, drinks, beer and fun with the flag! Everyone is allowed to use the flag the way they want. In the car, in front of their house, cubicles, posters, t-shirts, hat, even tattoo… You name it… When they see it everywhere it becomes a brand, a logo of themselves. They celebrate it while we stand at a distance and revere it. While respect is good, it should not be at the expense of forgetting the whole point of the flag , the idea of being free, the notion of being a nation. Do you know that the flag code was changed in 2002 after a trial? Now every one of us can fly it with due respect on all days! May be seeing the flag everyday might impart some love for the country too. Also celebrating it with family just as any other festival might be fun too. Just crying out loud the deep struck thought, that’s all! mmm.. time to paint a picture of the flag and hang it in my Cube!

Festive Season.

Hope you all had a wonderful Diwali. I love Diwali/Deepavali, it is the festival of lights in India. It is to commemorate the victory of Vishnu over the asura king "Naragasura". As usual this festival also has different alterations to the mythical story. But the main thread goes as Naragasura being the son of Mother earth (Bhooma Devi) and Vishnu himself (when he took Varaha avatar) , was mighty and powerful with all the boons he got. One main boon was that he can be killed only by his mother and no one else.

With his power he killed many people, he abducted thousands of women and caused trouble everywhere. He also stole the earrings of "Aditi" a god mother. This outraged Sathyabama, Aditi and Krishna. Sathyabama is another form of Booma Devi and Lord Krishna was an avathar of Vishnu. Together they waged a war against Naragasura and finally Sathyabama killed him (as per his boon). Before dying Naragasura got another boon that people should celebrate his death with lights and colors and hence the festival of Deepavali.

The tradition is to make various sweets and savories for the grand day. On diwali people wake up early in the morning, have oil bath and start with offering prayers to God and then bursting fire crackers. Then they visit relatives and friends and exchange sweets, blessings and wishes. Though I am not in my country now, I still got to do all of these including bursting fire crackers! It was fun to do all these when the fall is at its peak here, yes the short days and long windy, cold nights are on its way. The festive season in India comes to a close now and nothing until Pongal in Jan. But here the festive season is just beginning. Halloween is the first followed by Thanks Giving, Christmas and the New Year. The whole place would be covered in a white blanket of snow soon and everywhere there will be lights and decorations. Ironically, the cold weather seems to keep the spirits of people high :).

Time to make some cookies! So Trick or Treat?

"Green" Pillaiyar - Past and Present

Ganapathy, Vinayakar, Pillaiyar, Ganesha are all the different names denoting the elephant faced God in India. The story goes as devi Parvathi created him and Shiva still did not know about him. And one day Shiva went to visit Parvathi. She was bathing and Ganesha was standing guard. Ganesh was not aware of Shiva and vice versa, Ganesha did not allow Shiva inside, hence had a fight. In the ordeal Ganesha lost his head and Shiva gave him the elephant's head when he knew the truth about him.

The festival "Vinayaka Chathurthi" is the celebration for the birth of Lord Vinayaka. This God as per Hindu mythology is good natured, humble, and likes simple down to earth things. The statue itself is made to depict the nature of the God. I love to dress up the statue back in India when I was a small kid because it involved getting flowers from the backyard and on the street corners and making a garland out of that. The Bermuda grass (Arugam pul), Calotrophis gigantia(Erukam poo), Datura(Oomatham poo), Leucas aspera(Thumbai) are his favourite.

For the festival in the South India we get the statue made of clay and decorate it with flowers and cotton garlands, infact a very green way of doing it, but this time I am in US so I was not able to get this clay version, I did not want to get any other statue as I cannot leave it in water after 3 days. Was thinking about it, when it struck me that I can make it with turmeric. Yes, there is a non-figurine version for ganesh, made of turmeric. Also it is a general practice to keep and umbrella and a fan too (so that he can walk down to people's house to eat modhakam), My friend was generous enough to make a fan for my "green" Pillaiyar. Now the decoration flowers, I could not find any so was wodering if I can atleast get the grass, and learnt a rather strage thing. In US most of the grass on the golf course, in the house yards are bermuda grass!!! That was perfect, it was right in my patio.

Final version- An awesome Pillaiyar, huge mound of turmeric decorated with rose flowers, bermuda grass and kumkum, nicely seated in a raised seat (inverted mixing bowl on a wooden chair) lined with silk saree, fan on his side.

The next important thing is Modhakam and Kozhukattai, made of rice flour with sweet and savory fillings. In India the rice is soaked, dried and ground in flour mills a day before for making this dish. But here there are no flour mills, so I soaked, dried the rice and grinded it in a dry mixer, some prefer to save this trouble and use the store-bought flour, well its just me. I did it to get a feel of what my mom was doing for years. It came out nice and white, making the cups was a bit of a struggle for me, but learnt it in a bit. After the "Naivedhyam"- official offering to God and a mini pooja (as I am not all that orthodox), it was heavenly to eat them. Ofcourse took some pictures and sent to my family in India!