Happy Vijayadasami

Happy Vijayadashami to all of you and your family !

This year’s Navarathri was pretty much inconspicuous – more so because I really have never celebrated one entirely on my own. But it still had some of its special things – like the beginning of the 10day festival – with Kalpana’s Kolu. My boss at office, Kalpana, sets up Kolu every year (or so I am told – for this is the first time I went to see it), so she invited us home on the 1st day of Navarathri. The Mr. was all excited after seeing the Kolu and extracted a promise from me, that we will do something next year. I caught up with a colleague who recently quit our workplace and two-three other ladies also. It was nice seeing all sarees, beautiful bangles, jewellery – took me back home for a second . Kalpana’s home itself was so beautiful – it made the Mr. and me want to set up a house of our own soon – wonder when at all that will be. Well, in order that we don’t disappoint ourselves, we decorate our rented apt quite beautifully.

Yesterday was Saraswathy Pujai. Under amma’s instructions I put some books and tools in front of the Devi and the Mr. and I successfully completed a short pooja, stuttering out the slokams out of a tamil book that amma had given me. I tried my rusted vocal chords a bit and was so disappointed to realize that I hardly remembered any of the musical pieces that I once upon a time could recite at a moment’s notice. It made me want to rush back to Chennai and join music classes once again. Oh! I hate myself for not practicing all these years.

Today is Dasami. Brings back fond memories – every year I would run around applying chandanam and kumkumam to all the appliances in the house – the fridge, washing machine, sewing machine, the almariahs, mixie, grinder, TV, VCR, a couple of our shelves, the doors and wait patiently for the puja to get done, before rushing out to the Cellar to do the pooja to our vehicles (sometimes 3, sometimes 2). As a kid, I would love it when appa would give me a chance to take the scooter off the stand and run it a bit to crush the lemons placed under the tires. When he would start the car, I would love to hear the Squiiiiiish sound of the lemons and would circle around to ensure all 4 lemons were Squished.
In a hurry to come to work, I forgot all about applying chandanam to appliances. I made vella payasam, did small puja and rushed to work.

The Mr. called me to tell that one of his colleagues has given us a Saraswathi idol – how sweet of him. We hope to make it to the temple to close the Dasami on a nice note and to pray for new beginnings filled with nice things.