To Everyone's favourite God!!!

Vinayaka or Ganesh, we all so fondly call him!!! Like many Hindus, I too love him and adore him... Although a Jain by religion we still place Him first in all our functions, invite Him first and thus put Him before all of our Gods as well.

This year Sunil & I invited Him to our humble abode with lots of love and affection on his birthday “Ganesh Chaturthi”… I am not aware of the pujas that are performed as we do not celebrate it but for Sunil, this is a much more important festival almost as big as Diwali.

Today was a testing time for me in terms of cooking while Sunil took care of the puja stuff… I made modaks for the first time and definitely would like to skip the details… However, lunch on this special day included mooli sambhar, beans curry, semiya payasam and of course “curd rice”, the husband is so obsessed with!

And so I am leaving with you a snapshot of what happened at home today and wishing you a very Happy Ganesh Chaturti… while I retire now after a tiring morning and a very heavy lunch!!!

Holi Hai!

The ever so colorful festival this year has come but does not knock our door.

We have decided to refrain from colors this year in view of the two recent painful deaths in the family. This is our way of paying tribute to my late uncle and grandfather.

Usually Holi for me is a very dull festival, as I have long forgotten to play with colors – last being the year 2004… I guess one thing is age and the other the pain to clear the color off your face. Also I have become conscious of the chemicals that go into puccka (real) colors… now that coming from a Marwari is surprising as we are considered very jubilant when it comes to such festivities.

And while I am sitting here in office (since I don’t have a holiday today and Sundru has one) scripting this entry he is spending his day at home watching movies and lazing around (sigh! Don’t we all want to do that?) . Being an Iyer he is celebrating the festival in true sense than I…

I still remember my first official holi after wedding in 2007, Sundru & I did play little holi in our bathroom just for shagun:-0 (Yes we did). He quotes me in saying that he too doesn’t like it for the same obvious reasons but secretly I think he wants to just that I don’t give him that much required company, needless to say along with chilling thandai with a little bhaang in it ;)

As far as this year goes, I did go to my sister’s place (playing my part of the daughter of my family and filling in for my mom who is away on a holy business). For shagun I did put a little gulaal (pink color) to all her family members carrying along some savories for the occasion.

So here’s wishing everyone a very happy and a colorful holi…