Category Archives: Family

Screentime and Teens

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Last week I went to a Parent Support Group in GG’s school and as it is usually the case in such meetings, one of the topics discussed was the amount of time the children spent on their mobile phones and other devices. The meeting in GG’s school was for the lower secondary parents (13-14-year-olds) while the PSG meetings at BB’s school are for all parents (children between 12-16 years old).

One of the biggest gripes that parents had was the excessive Whatsapp messages that seem to come in all the time. I too have noticed messages on their phones, some which come in at 1 pm on a school night! I’ve always wondered why the children’s parents do not seem to have any objections on their children being on their phones so late.

But then that is me. So I read a lot, spoke to people and came to some ground rules before we brought BB & GG a phone when they started the school year.

One of my biggest takeaways was this wonderful app which was recommended to me by a parent from BB’s school. The app is called OurPact and I really love it. Both the parent and child have to download the app and the parent has control over the child’s phone. How the app works is like this – as a parent, you can decide when you want to lock the child’s phone. You can lock/unlock the phone for specific times or even set up schedules for the phone to be locked/unlocked for certain periods of the day and this schedule will be followed all week. The app is available on both iOS and Android platforms.

OurPact is a contract between the parent and the child, but the app will work only if the child is willing to download the app and does not delete it. Also if either the parent o the child does not have access to wifi or data, the app will not work. When the app lock is on, the child can only use the phone to make calls, send messages through SMS or listen to music using the music stored. Whatsapp, Internet browsers, Youtube are all locked until the app is turned on again.

In our home, so far both GG & BB have taken to the app, they grumble when I lock their phones but have not indicated they want to delete the app. We also have other rules such as their phones have to be charged in my room at night and this will not happen later than 9:30 pm (their phones go into lock mode aka sleep time mode then). Most of the time, both will bring in their phones to be charged before 9:30 pm.

I don’t know how long this compliance will last and I will take it as long as I can. Hopefully by the time they insist on having their phones with them 24/7, they would have learned good digital manners. One can only hope and pray, right!

 

 

Growing up in Mumbai

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Matunga – for any Tambrahm in Mumbai, especially those of a certain age, the very word evokes the feel of home. Sometimes called ‘Mini Madras’, Matunga in what would be some where in the centre of what is the original city (as opposed to the suburbs) was probably the first place the initial immigrants, young, eager, bright and wide-eyed, came to from Dadar station when their trains from the south arrived in Mumbai all ready to conquer the world, with an introduction to perhaps, if they are lucky, to a relative (distant or otherwise), or maybe someone from the same village they belonged to, or even a relative’s relative!

While I am not sure if this is 100% accurate, from what I’ve heard from my parents and grandparents, most young Tamil Brahmin boys and men started arriving in Mumbai (or Bombay as it was called then) somewhere in the early forties, some years before India would finally throw off the yoke of British dominance and become independent.

Both sets of my grandparents arrived in Bombay somewhere in the early to mid-forties, luckier than most as both my grandfathers had an older brother already settled in the city, in Matunga as it were! If I were to probably measure the distance my paternal and maternal grandparents live away from each other, when they first arrived in the city, it should probably be a maximum of 1 km.

Matunga is the heart of the Tamil Brahmin community in Bombay and as such the roads are filled with the sights and sounds of temple bells and the smells of filter coffee and delicious food!

Temples like Bhajana Samaj, Astika Samaj and Sankara Math, shops like Mysore Concerns, Giri Stores and the row of flower sellers in the road outside the post office along with the vegetable sellers who have carts close-by are all hallmarks of the Tamil Brahmin community in Matunga! Who can forget the Ram Navami and Navaratri celebrations in Bhajana Samaj, the Diwali sweets that always were sold in the hall in Sankara Matt, the banana leaf sold by the vegetable vendors during any major festival, the gaggle of priests, outside the temples, the sound of the temple bells and sugarcane stalks just before Pongal?

When their families grew, both sets of my grandparents moved from their family homes and out of Matunga. But they both didn’t’ pull the umbilical cord too much and move far away. Both of them moved another kilometer away from Matunga in opposite directions actually, and that was where my parents were brought up.

So growing up, we lived in another area which was a fifteen minute walk from Matunga, which was in the periphery of our lives, without actually living there. We used to go to Matunga for literally everything and my mum still goes there atleast two to three times a week for her weekly ‘fix’. This area in Bombay is the lifeline for the community and even today when other mini Matungas have sprung up across the city and suburbs – like Chembur, Chedda Nagar, Bangur Nagar, Mulund, Dombivili, Vashi, etc you can still people who have moved away from Matunga come here on weekends to catch-up with family and friends, eat at childhood haunts and buy essentials which you don’t get anywhere else in the city.

Growing up, there was always this disconnect – we were Tamilians, but without the accent which is usually caricatured in movies and television and always had questions on why we needed to wear a bindi on our forehead or flowers in our hair. In my and my sister’s case, it was compounded by the fact we didn’t go to the school that most of our Brahmin friends and relatives went to (which was a school run by a Tamil trust where the language was taught as a second language)!

Growing up also we were quite insular. I would say this with the benefit of hindsight. Every Tamilan I knew at that point in time was a Brahmin – either from one of the districts of Tamil Nadu or from Palakkad (from Kerala who are called Kerala Iyers or Palakkad Brahmins). Where we stayed, while not in Matunga, was in fact another Tamil conclave, with almost all the 30-40 buildings in the area having a sizeable Tambrahm population each. My building had 19 flats and with the exception of 2-3, every flat was a Tambrahm flat! This was pretty much the case (the percentages being slightly more or less, with some exceptions) for the other buildings in the street I lived in. Even in school, my friends who were Tamil were Brahmins. In fact, coming to Singapore with its vast Tamil population was actually a culture shock to me as I had never seen so many people from so many Tamil communities and the temples were the biggest shock – I had not heard of all the different Gods that were worshipped there (all the temples I visited prior to this were my community temples or the other temples in Mumbai)

Since most of the community emigrated to Bombay around 60-80 years back, the dialect of Tamil, we speak is completely different from what is spoken by the community in places like Chennai and Singapore. Bombay Tambrahms have retained the words and cadence of their speech from all those years while communities in Singapore and Chennai have adopted more of the local language. So the Tamil we speak may actually seem strange to those who don’t speak like this! S used to tell me that they used to be made fun of in school when they spoke Brahmin Tamil, which is why his Tamil sounds more like how it is in movies while mine is the one they make fun of in movies!

Writing this post has made me so nostalgic. I think the next time I go to Mumbai, I will try and capture all the sights and sounds of the city so that every time I miss Mumbai, I have these to see and hear! Also this post has made me realise I need to pen down more about my life, so that GG and BB know what that was like….

An Unforgettable Trip

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While in India, one of our smaller trips was to Bangalore to meet my maternal grandmother who is nearing close to 90 and also to meet an uncle who is suffering from a double whammy of Alzheimer’s as well as Parkinson’s!

The four of us plus my mum were supposed to be taking IndiGo both ways, with us taking the 12:30 flight from Mumbai, reaching Bangalore around 2:15. The new airport in Bangalore is very, very far away from the city and to get to anywhere in the city is at least a 90 minute drive, this is assuming the horrendous traffic that Bangalore is famous for is clear and non-existent at that point! We’d planned for a two hour drive to my aunt’s place which is in one of the outer suburbs, the other side of the airport and which should take around 70 – 80 minutes at that time of the day and had expected to reach latest by 4 pm. We’d also arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the airport.

In the morning, while getting ready to leave, I got a message from the airline that the flight had been retimed to an hour later than it was supposed to leave. Though it was irritating, we shrug it off and changed our plans accordingly. We left around 10:30 which should get us to the airport around 11:15, which would be well in time for the 1:30 pm flight. On the way to the airport I received two messages from the airlines – one after the other, which now changed the flight’s departure time to 4 pm!

I was thus, quite upset when I reached the check-in counter. The person who checked us in told me that it was a technical problem and he could check us into the next flight to Bangalore which left at 3:45 pm. When asked, he said there was no guarantee that our scheduled 12:30 flight would make it at 4 pm, but the 3:45 flight was assured to leave on time. So we did the change and spoke to my dad. My dad was by that time not interested in us going to the city, he wanted us to cancel the tickets, get a refund and return home. My mum, on the other hand wanted to meet her mum, sisters and brothers-in-law. Around 3 pm, when we were waiting to start the boarding process, I got another message from the airline saying the 3:45 flight had now been postponed to 5:30 pm.

At this point, I completely lost it! The boarding gate area at this point was resembling a small town bus stand with passengers all over the place. The domestic airport didn’t even have decent places to eat and we were hungry, bored and super angry. I then went to the airline counter and spoke to one of the supervisors. What she told me was a completely different story from what the check-in guy told me. Her story was that since all their flights originate in the northern part of India and that part was fogged up, all flights were running 3-4 hours late, there was no technical problem at all!

Then me and another lady who had to get to Bangalore also urgently spoke to her and when I told her what I was told while checking in, she decided to get it reconfirmed. That was a lie I was told initially. Then that sweet lady (I did write down her name, but now I can’t find the paper) told us she will put us back in my original flight (the 12:30 one) which was now going to land shortly and depart for Bangalore at 5:30 pm.
We (the five of us plus the two of them) then were led out of the security area and had to re-checkin for the 5:30 flight. Clear security once again and then start the wait all over again. We finally got in the bus to get to the aircraft around 5:15 pm and when we reached the aircraft, we saw that all the passengers had not disembarked. What we saw made everyone on that bus comment again! We saw groups of people who used the gangway to take photos and selfies! This sheer selfishness of people really threw me away! These people have also been delayed by 3-4 hours and they know this flight has to go to another destination, yet they spend, nay waste precious moments taking pictures that they can do outside the plane.

We finally boarded and the flight left around 6 pm. We reached Bangalore around 7:15 and got to my aunt’s place at 9 pm! What was roughly a 6 hour journey door-to-door became an almost 12 hour one!

The return journey was nothing like what I wrote above! It was a breeze and what IndiGo is renowned for and we made it home by 3 pm (We had taken the same 12:30 flight from Bangalore to Mumbai)!

This is one trip that none of us are going to forget in a hurry I am sure!

Festivals of India: Navratri

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With the Ghatasthapana, yesterday marked the start of the nine days of revelry that is the Navratri festival. This festival, which pays homage to the female energy or shakti is dedicated to the nine major Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon.

Navratri translates to Nav or nine and ratri or nights in Sanskrit. During the nine nights of Navratri, nine forms of Devi or the female energy are worshipped. The tenth day is celebrated as Dusshera or Vijayadashami or The Day of Victory. This comes about as this was the day Lord Ram (of the celebrated Hindu epic, Ramayana) defeated the Demon Lord king Ravana in what is present day Sri Lanka and freed his wife Goddess Sita who was imprisoned by Ravana. The two, along with Lord Rama’s brother Lord Lakshmana who had accompanied his brother and sister-in-law in their exile, then left for home as this day had also ended their fourteen years of exile. The enter the city of Ayodhya in north India around twenty days later, which is celebrated as the festival of Diwali in north India.

Navaratri represents a celebration of the Goddess Amba, (the Power). Navaratri or Navadurga Parva happens to be the most auspicious and unique period of devotional sadhanas and worship of Shakti (the sublime, ultimate, absolute creative energy) of the Divine conceptualized as the Mother Goddess-Durga, whose worship dates back to prehistoric times before the dawn of the Vedic age.

A whole chapter in the tenth mandal of the Rigveda addresses the devotional sadhanas of Shakti. The “Devi Sukta” and “Isha Sukta” of the Rigveda and “Ratri Sukta” of the Samveda similarly sing paeans of praise of sadhanas of Shakti. In fact, before the beginning of the legendary war between the Pandavas and Kauravas in the Mahabharata – a foundational Sanskrit epic in the Hindu tradition – Lord Krishna worshipped Durga, the Goddess of Shakti, for the victory of the Pandvas.

The Navaratri commences on the first day (pratipada) of the bright fortnight of the lunar month of Ashwin. The festival is celebrated for nine nights once every year during the beginning of October, although as the dates of the festival are determined according to the lunar calendar, the festival may be held for a day more or a day less.
This is how Navratri is celebrated in most parts of India, specifically in the north. The first day of Navratri is the Pratipada or Ghatastapana pooja, the second day called Dwitya is the Chandra Darshan Brahmacharini Pujan. The third day is the Tritiya day and the pooja that day is the Sindoor Tritiya Chandraghanta Pujan while the fourth or Chaturti day is the Varad Vinayaka Chauth. The fifth or Panchami day is the Upang Lalita Vrat Skandamata Pujan, while the sixth or Shashti and seventh or Saptami is devoted to the Godess of Learning or Saraswati with the Saraswati Awahan Katyayani Pujan on the sixth day and the Saraswati Puja Kalaratri Pujan on the seventh day. The eighth day is called Ashtami and is the day the Goddess Durga is worshipped with the Durga Ashtami Mahagauri Pujan Sandhi Puja or Maha Ashtami. The last day of the Navratri is called Navami and this day is when you worship your implements of your profession and is called Ayudha Puja or Durga Visarjan or Maha Navami. So on this day, students and professionals will put their books in front of a portrait of Goddess Saraswati, IT guys will worship their computers, farmers will worship their plough, tractors, other professionals will worship what they use the most….you get the point….
Everyday of the nine days has a colour associated with it. Sunday is red/maroon, Monday is white or cream, Tuesday is orange, Wednesday is green, Thursday is yellow, Friday is silver and Saturday is blue or peacock. Most people will try to wear the above colours during the nine days. I remember when I was working in India, almost everyone in the office would be wearing uniform colours depending on the day! I too try to wear the colours as much as possible, but working means you can’t wear colours like silver, so I try to incorporate it somewhere as much as possible.

In our neighbouring state of Gujarat, the Navratri is a huge festival, with the nights reserved for dance. Every day, everyone, be you young or old, will flock to communal grounds and dance the Garba and the Dandiya Raas! This practice is also very popular in Mumbai and I am also nostalgic about this festival when you get a chance to dress up and go and dance the night away!

In Tamil Nadu, dolls and idols are set up on tiers of steps called Golu. Usually in the evening, women and girls are invited to the house of the host and they are given turmeric and betel leaves, called vathailay paaku and asked to sing for the Goddess. On the ninth day, as mentioned, Saraswati Pooja is done which I have blogged before. Books, computers, musical instruments are placed before the Goddess and worshipped.

On the next day, which is Vijayadashami when good overcomes evil, children are encouraged to read the books. The tenth day is also a day for beginings. Most new ventures will start this day. I remember we did BB & GG’s vidhyarambham or the day children formally start learning when they were around two years old on a trip to India during Dusshera day. That day parents make the children write a holy word on a mound of rice and this kind of starts their formal learning journey. Most parents do it just before their children start school, but we did it earlier than usual as the children were scheduled to start daycare a few months after Dusshera and that India trip.

In the evening of “Vijayadasami”, any one doll from the “Kolu” is symbolically put to sleep and the Kalasa is moved a bit towards North to mark the end of that year’s Navaratri Kolu. Prayers are offered to thank God for the successful completion of that year’s Kolu and with a hope of a successful one the next year. Then the Kolu is dismantled and packed up for the next year.

Mysore, in the state of Karnataka is very well-known for it’s Navratri festivities, which is the state festival, with the royal family taking part whole heartedly. On the ninth day of Dasara, called Mahanavami, the royal sword is worshipped and is taken on a procession of decorated elephants, camels and horses. On the tenth day, called Vijayadashami, the traditional Dasara procession (locally known as Jumboo Savari) is held on the streets of Mysore. An image of the Goddess Chamundeshwari is placed on a golden howdah on the back of a decorated elephant and taken on a procession, accompanied by tableaux, dance groups, music bands, decorated elephants, horses and camels. The procession starts from the Mysore Palace and culminates at a place called Bannimantapa, where the banni tree is worshipped. The Dasara festivities culminate on the night of Vijayadashami with a torchlight parade, known locally as Panjina Kavayatthu.

In the eastern state of West Begal, the last four days of Navaratri are particularly celebrated as Durga Puja. This is the biggest festival of the year in this state and exquisitely crafted and decorated life-size clay idols of the Goddess Durga depicting her slaying the demon Mahishasura are set up in temples and other places. These idols are then worshiped for five days and immersed in the river on the fifth day. People in the state go puja mandal hopping and try to make it home irrespective of where they are in the world for the pooja!

Festivals of India: Ganesh Chaturthi

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Ganpati Bappa Morya, Mangal Murti Morya”

With these words, hundreds of thousands of devotees across India would have welcomed the very loved elephant-head God, Lord Ganesh into their homes for his annual visit.

Lalbagcha Raja – 2014

The festival, also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi, is observed in the Hindu calendar month of Bhaadrapada, starting on the shukla chaturthi (fourth day of the waxing moon period). The date usually falls between August and September. The festival usually lasts for 10 days, ending on Anant Chaturdashi.

While the festival is celebrated all over the country and across the Indian diaspora, today’s post will mostly focus on the way it is celebrated in my home state of Maharashtra and is full of nostalgia….

Mumbaicha Raja – 2014

Earlier, homes in Maharashtra used to celebrate Ganesh Chaturti like others in India, by worshipping him in their homes. But all this changed in a large scale when the legendary freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak, who impressed by the first Sarvajanik (Public) Ganesh idols installed by Shrimant Bhausaheb Rangari Ganpati, Bhudwar Peth, in Pune, praised it in his revolutionary newspaper Kesari and started using the concept of Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav to disseminate the concept of freedom from the British to the people of Mumbai. The concept then took up and has not looked back since then. Till around 20 odd years, it was mainly restricted to Maharashtra, but these days, you can find Sarvajanik Ganesh Pandals all over the country.

GSB Seva Mandal – 2014

Weeks before the festival, Ganesh Mandals (groups) would have decided on the theme of their Mandal and would have ordered the idol based on the theme. Then they would collect donations from the neighbourhood and using this would buy the decorations for their mandal. The mandals also vie with each other to put up the biggest statue and the best pandal and the duration of the idol’s visit would have cultural activities like singing and theater performances, orchestra and community activities like free medical checkup, blood donation camps, and charity for the poor.

The idols, both communal and the ones at home are worshiped in every morning and evening until the departure. The worship involves various offerings to the idol including flowers and durva. Each durva bunch has 21 shoots and the shoots have either three or five strands. Other offerings like modak also have to number 21 in Ganesh worship. The daily worship ceremonies ends with the worshipers singing the Aarti in honor of Ganesh, other Gods and saints. The Ganesh aarti sung in Maharashtra was composed by the 17th century, saint Samarth Ramdas.As per the tradition of their respective families, the domestic celebrations come to an end after 1, 3, 5, 7 or 11 days when the statue is taken in a procession to a large body of water such a lake, river or the sea for immersion. Due to environmental concerns, a number of families now avoid the large water bodies and instead let the clay statue disintegrate in a bucket or tub of water at home. After a few days the clay is used in the home garden. In some cities, a public eco-friendly process is used for immersion.

Some of the Ganesh idols in Mumbai are iconic, among them being Lalbagcha Raja and Mumbaicha Raja, which are usually one of the biggest idols in the city and GSB Seva Mandal’s idol where the idol is said to be made of gold and some of the ornaments are said to be made of diamonds!

What’s a festival without sweets and the neividhyam (offering) for Ganesh Chaturti is Modak or Kozhakottai as its called in Tamil. This is Lord Ganesh’s favourite sweet and different families have their own recipe to make this delicious sweet!

Writing this post is making me very nostalgic to be in Mumbai. In all the years that I’ve been away, I’ve never been able to get back for this festival. This is my favourite festival as Lord Ganesh is my ishtadev (favourite God) and I can remember how we went to major roads to see the Ganpati idols making their way to the pandals or go pandal-hopping the day of the festival and across the 10 days to see the major Ganpati idols or even standing for hours on Anant Chaturdashi day to see the idols being taken for immersion…

I’m going to leave you with the Aarti I love for Ganpati which is sung by the nightingale of India, Lata Mangeshkar. This song never fails to soothe my soul….

Ganpati Bappa Morya, Mangal Murthi Morya