A Happy Dasara!

Festive colors will be all over India now. Navarathri or Dasara is the festival of Good over Evil. Durga/Bhagavathi killed Mahishasura the evil Asura, after 9 days of war and hence the triumph is celebrated. Sakthi which basically means "Power" (in star-wars terms ‘the force’) was given a feminine form in Hinduism. So this Sakthi has several avatars, and this festival is about the Durga avatar. Some parts of India celebrate it on the 8th day of lunar cycle called "Durgashtami", and in the eastern side it is celebrated as "Durga Pooja" on the 10th day and in the south it is the 8th day - Saraswathi Pooja, 9th day - Ayudha Pooja and 10th day Vijayadasami. West Bengal will be the most colorful of all during this festival.

Traditionally this festival is celebrated in my house too in India. When I was young my Sister and I used to build the steps, arrange the dolls, make a small park around it with temples, villages, zoo, motel etc., make rangoli, invite people and eat Sundal :). It was fun-filled-fall-vacation time in India our quarter-year exams will be over by then. Just the thought was enough to get me on my feet to do it here this year. I do not have any idols of the Gods here, so with my mom's idea to base it on "Evolution", I went doll shopping for a few hours. I found all the necessary dolls in the dollar tree, kids shop etc.,

A generous friend with his design skills made the steps out of a card box (without even cutting it), it was remarkable and hence I decided to put a separate picture of it. I made a small shelf for the gods put them on the wall at top of the steps. The only God statues were "Ganesha","Durga" and "Saraswathi". The rest were all "Animalia"- starting from Arthropods (ofcourse the insects scared some visitors) - Fishes - Amphibians - the great Dinosaurs and other Reptilia - Aves, Mammals and ourselves (Homo sapiens). I did go a level further and kept Robots in the end ;). My colleagues came with their families and enriched the festival.

In the beginning of the festival I had challenged myself to make Sundal everyday with a different bean for all 9 days (as is the tradition) and I did it!! The next in my list is Diwali... Lets see how that goes.

Bombing our Beloved Moon

Moon has a special place in people's lives and heart. Ancient times before electricity we relied on moonlight for passing through the night. In many religions and culture a lot of festivals are based on the moon. The white marvel has stayed in its place, far from our earth, growing and diminishing, and still has inspired scienticts,poets,kids, astrologers,lovers, leaders and every being on earth. Do you remember as kids how much you were connected to the moon...

• When we were too young your mom would have made you eat with the promise of the moon.
• Later in the school days you would have caught the moon in your dreams.
• Few years later you might have had goals to reach the moon and walk there.
• In college in that dorm room when you were lying lonely in your bed the rays of the moon would have given a soothing feeling.
• In the evening breeze under the full moon was it not a real blessing even if you were sitting alone or with a girl friend.

Yet today we bombarded it, as a species we got tired of bombing our own planet that now we got this insatiable urge to bomb the only natural satellite that is tirelessly revolving us. Not that I do not believe in extra terrestial, science fiction or life outside dear Earth but just contemplating the simple fact. If you have watched Wall-E you would know, 'that future' is not very far.. us living in a whole new "Earth".In case if you are interested in watching some pictures check out http://www.nasa.gov/

Leaving a foot print...

I have been an active blogger for quite sometime now. In addition to writing posts in my blog page, I like to visit other blogs and would leave comments on the posts that interest me. That does not confine to personal blogs, even the news paper blogs and other sites that host blogs and wherever someone expects an opinion or a feedback. I know I am not alone, there are many among you who tend to do that and I really appreciate it. You know it is the inherent feeling to leave a mark, to let people know what you think about it, a strong imprint so they know you exist.

But there are others who tend to stay in the shades and enjoy watching the sun and the others who scream out loud about its effects. They move as shadows between blogs, assimilate the facts, contemplate it in their dreams and voice out in their minds. Not for a million dollars they will leave their hiding bushes, shrines of their wisdom and blabber loud in a common forum, neither for a thousand pounds of gold will they go public with their views shattering the walls of invisibility around them. Both of you are welcome to read my blog and if u do not belong to the later type you can always leave a foot print, I enjoy knowing you were here..

Red-Winged Black Birds!

I see black spots decorating the evening sky
They are the black birds on migratory fly

To the south of Tundra they go in autumn

Back to Alaska when the spring blossoms

Moving black cloud blocks the sun

Oh its the black birds having fun!

They gather as groups, split in formation

And regroup to the onlooker’s confusion

Do you hear the sound "oak-a-lee”?

A bright red patch you will see

The male black bird is in delight

Singing to impress the female in sight

Oh I see black dots on the fall sky

It is the black birds on migratory fly!

                -Inspired by Wallace Stevens &

                  the Black birds I see everyday

Pookolama illai Idhazkolama?

The festival of Onam falls in the month of September on the day of "Thiruvonam" star. Good guess, most of the festivals in India are driven by star and moon positions and hence the date will differ each year. This festival is celebrated to commemorate the greatness of King "Mahabali" who was an Asura king (the divine bad guys :)) and Lord Vishnu who killed this king but granted a nice wish to him. Though Mahabali was very nice to his subjects he was giving trouble to Devars (The divine good guys who are protected by the Gods). He is a strong king but very generous too. So Lord Krishna came up with a plan to destroy him. He came down to earth as "Vamana" a short Brahman and went to meet the king. King Mahabali asked Vamana what he wants and Vamana asked for 3 feet of land, deceived by the size the king granted the wish and asked him to take it. Then Vamana grew so huge and became Lord Vishnu and for the first foot he took the earth, for the second the sky and for third since there was nothing else left Mahabali understood his mistake and bowed down and asked the Lord to take him and the Lord put his foot on the King's head and destroyed him. The devars were happy, but the people of the kingdom felt miserable about losing the king and pleaded to Vishnu, the God wanting to make the people happy granted a wish that Mahabali can come to visit his people every year on that day. Hence the tradition goes as people welcome the king with the "Pookolam (Floral Rangoli) and present him with "Ona Sadhya" (variety of food served on Banana leaf) every year.

This festival is celebrated at my home too because of the Kerala ancestry, and with my "Chathurthi" experience, I decided to celebrate it here in US by making Pookolam and a smaller version of Sadhya. Since it is already fall here there were no flowers in my mini garden, I had no choice but to get flowers from a grocery store. I needed at least 3 colors so settled for a moderately priced bouquet. There were so few flowers in it that I decided to pluck out the petals inside of putting the flowers as a whole. The flowers were not enough as there were exactly 3 colors and I needed to some more to finish the design I took. So took the leaves and some part of stem too. With this all set I had to look for a suitable background. Between a glass cake base and a plain dark blue chart I went for the glass. The picture here is the final look. I sent it to a friend in India thinking it is really nice and all that and the heading if the blog is the comment I got :)), point being The Floral kolam I made did not have even 1 whole flower :(.

To give this to the intended God I needed a Vishnu picture. It was late in the night to go shopping so had to "make my own Vishnu". Found a picture after a bit of 'googling', fed it to my All-in-one printer and framed it. Picture Perfect! Decided to make the sadhya fresh in the morning and called it a night. In the morning Rice was ready as the first dish, followed by the okra theeyal (my ex-roommates recipe, but the stickiness of okra had not completely gone), in parallel channa dal in the cooker for payasam (This came out wonderful). The other item in the plan was raw banana eruseri, only that the bananas were already ripe within the two day shelf life. When the eruseri (Dad's recipe) was done it was almost close but with all the sweetness of banana (people @ work liked it for lunch though). All these dishes were loaded with coconut, coconut milk and coconut oil for nice flavor and taste.

Though it was a comedy of errors, I loved the experience.

"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!

Sweet Rights

Its a nice day and I was casually browsing the News from India. This news made me happy.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tirupati-laddoo-gets-geographical-copyright/517376/

Thirupathi reminds me of laddoo as much as it reminds me of Lord Venkateshwara. I have always liked that laddoo. I dont know if it is because of the fact that it is not freely available or it is the Lord's prasadam or the wait in the queue. Neverthless the taste is unmatchable. And finally this precious little sweet that belongs to India is being protected by Law. I feel India needs to patent a lot more things and get copyrights. Sandal wood products, cotton scarfs, khadi, silk sarees, the color saffron, a lot of rice based dishes, South Indian Sambar, Garam Masala and more :) India can become rich just by suing other countries for using their copyrighted items.