A Small Sankranti Souvenir!

The phone started beeping incessantly a day earlier with notifications. Messages were pouring in from enthusiastic well-wishers who wanted to be the first to wish you on  Makar Sankranti. There were lovely images of kites, til and gud laddoos (traditional sweets made with sesame seeds and jaggery on Sankranti), haldi-kumkum, flowers, sugarcane, and other related items associated with this festival. On the day of the festival, there was a tsunami of much more of the same. 

Notwithstanding the frenetic activity on the phone, my mind wandered back to the time when Sankranti meant visiting relatives and friends on a cool January day, touching the feet of elders and receiving til-gud laddoos or barfis from them along with the friendly refrain: til gul ghya, goad goad bola (take til gul and talk sweetly).

If a family had had a wedding or the birth of a baby in the months preceding this festival, then the new bride or the new baby would be adorned with jewellery made using halwa (small spiky balls made by coating sesame seeds with sugar syrup on low heat for a long time, a laborious process as the stirring is done using one's fingers). The whiter and spikier the halwa, the better. The bride would usually wear a black saree--otherwise taboo on auspicious occasions--and the white ornaments would stand out beautifully on that.

Sometimes, a kind relative living in a distant town would send a few balls of halwa sealed in a plastic bag kept inside a postal envelope. What fun it was to open that envelope, read the hand-written letter and relish the sweet!

Neighbourhood ladies used to exchange clay pots filled with fresh green peas, sugarcane pieces, ber, and other seasonal fruits and vegetables. It was wonderful to lay your hands on one of these and enjoy the winter goodies. Ladies would also exchange small items of personal or household use as gifts. Bangles, combs, soaps, hair clips, safety pins, pens, postage stamps, inland letters. There used to be a great deal of excitement and anticipation surrounding these gifts.

Such simple times! What makes these memories precious are the personal interactions when wishing someone on an auspicious day. There is always space for these memories. No need to delete them, unlike the ones we keep deleting from our phones every now and then lest their storage space is full!

Navaratri In Mylapore: Maamis, Manjal And More!

I was in Mylapore yesterday. The neighbourhood is synonymous with tradition in Chennai. The area surrounding the ancient Kapaleeshwarar Temple is the hub of activity during the ongoing festival season. One can get a flavour of culture and tradition here amidst colours, crowd, chaos and a cacophony of street sounds.

Yesterday was the first day of Navaratri, a festival lasting nine nights and nine days culminating on Dusshera, the tenth day. These nine days are especially marked for worshipping Shakti, the divine in the female form. In Tamil Nadu and some other parts of South India, families put up a display of dolls in their homes to celebrate this festival. These dolls are arranged on odd-numbered tiers, like three, five, seven or nine. Called Golu or Kolu, these decorations are the centre of attraction in any household. Friends, family and neighbours visit to admire them. They are treated with food and small gifts.

I walked in the market for some time and was overwhelmed by the number and variety of dolls and other pooja items on sale. The street was lined with makeshift stalls selling figurines in bright colours. Packets containing chunks of dried turmeric, accompanied with the cries of manjal, manjal were selling like hot cakes. I guess it is one of the important ingredients of the festivities. Maamis--as elderly ladies are addressed in this part of the country--were busy taking their pick from the huge stock available. I took many pictures and I will let some of them do the talking here.

See how stylishly she stands with one foot forward like models do at a pageant.

Krishna stands out amongst a multitude of other deities.

The stalls are so tightly packed that it is impossible to take a picture of just one figurine. This makes for some interesting visuals. See how Shiva is peeping from behind Krishna's shoulder!

Even Gods face the space crunch in this time and age. Here, Shiva-Parvati and Ganesha are balanced on top of another Ganesha and Saibaba!

Divine Grace!

Couldn't resist taking a picture of this fragrant basket!

Reclining Ganesha!

Poised to take on the demons.

Another form of Shakti.

These miniature figures are interesting, often depicting rural life in village scenes.

Some ritual or celebration. Perhaps for an expectant mother.

Another village scene.

These fruits look quite real! Not sure what they are made of. The sellers were claiming they are not breakable.

Lord Venkateswara in all his glory.

Lord Vishnu stretched on his Ananta Shesha...right by a Honda Activa!

Beautifully decked up! Aren't their features well-defined and sharp? They look lovely indeed!

Ma Saraswati with her Veena!

Some exquisite garlands. Isn't it amazing how tightly the flowers are packed in them?

And now, a couple of parting shots with more flowers. Fascinating!

 

Holi Is Around The Corner

When the nights started getting warm and the days warmer, when the woollen clothes felt burdensome every now and then, when you thought that you better open your windows, you knew that Holi was around the corner. The palash (flame of the forest, tesu) tree outside our window would come alive with little orange buds every year at this time. Soon, the whole tree was a riot of bright orange blossoms, their flames leaping towards the sky, leaving the tree completely bereft of its green foliage. This was my favourite harbinger, marking the turn of the seasons.

Photo by Santosh Chandran, CC-BY-SA

Holi, in Delhi brought the winter to an end. It came at a point when winter left Delhi, and summer was yet to arrive. It was the perfect time to shed your winter clothes, shed your inhibitions and join the party. But for years, we kept away from all the hullabaloo. We just did not like the loudness, the aggression and the mess that Holi brought with it. Why get doused with strong chemical colours that were not only hard to wash off, but were hazardous too? We wanted to avoid all this and preferred to stay put indoors, watching our neighbours who were hidden behind layers of powders and paints, from the safety of our home.

This went on for a few years. But our neighbours decided that they would not let us have the vicarious pleasure of playing Holi from the confines of our living room. So one fine Holi day, they rang the bell and knocked at our door, asking us to join them. We knew that they were armed with coloured powders, pastes and water bottles (pichkaris), ready to pounce on us as soon as they could, and so we decided not to open the door. The mob outside, though friendly, turned furious at our temerity and started pounding at the door with their fists. Some others kept the button of the bell pressed, making it shriek continuously. We were not sure if  keeping the door shut was wise, but we stuck to our stand anyway. The poor bell could not cope with the incessant pressure and fell silent. The thumping went on for some more time and then stopped. The group of revellers gave up on us and moved away, leaving us clean and dry, secure in our territory.

Even though we got what we wanted, we were somewhat uncomfortable because we had turned our neighbours away from our door without greeting them. We lived on the campus of an academic institute where my husband taught, so they were not only neighbours, but his colleagues too.

At the next Holi, we decided to participate in the celebrations in our campus. When we offered no resistance and went from door to door willingly with other people, they treated us as one of them and did not attack us with their deadly powders and coloured water, as they would most certainly have if we were to hide in a corner and show reluctance. Sure, they threw hot purple powder in my hair, and painted my face with fluorescent green, red and yellow, but the 'attack' was friendly, not ferocious. We followed this practice every year and soon became a part of the gang. The situation with chemical colours improved considerably as there were several campaigns against them in Delhi. People became aware of the dangers they posed and opted for organic colours that were safe.

Around noon, when everybody had played with colours to their hearts' content, a kind and generous neighbour used to invite all of us to his home for some refreshments. They had a neat garden outside their flat. Some of us sprawled on the lawn, while plastic chairs were hurriedly pulled out for others. The hostess disappeared in the kitchen to send platters of snacks for all of us. We felt very comfortable in each other's company in spite of all the mess on our clothes and bodies. It was at that instant that I understood the spirit of Holi. The Holi colours had the magical powers of hiding our formal demeanour and bringing out our true selves. We sat in that garden, sipping tea, munching on the savouries and soaking in the 'feel good' air around us. Taking a shower, washing the colours off our bodies and changing into clean clothes could surely wait for some time, couldn't it?