I have been working half day from home so it hardly felt as if I was at work last week. This will continue this week too and then next week till the end of the exams I will be working from home.
Actually working from home is a misnomer as I don’t have any work to do! Just before I got permission from my boss to work from home, I did mention that I don’t have anything on my plate now. His response was “So what will do at home?” I stared at him for a moment and mentioned some things I had been doing since last week to keep myself busy, but that’s not really something great. Aah well, in a way this is good as I don’t have deadlines while at home, but it becomes difficult to pretend to be busy at work! 😦
I have decided to start looking for new opportunities, I am starting this process now, so by the time the exams are done, I should be able to do this in all seriousness…
I am looking forward to the end of the exams so that we can go shopping!! I’ve planned some stuff with BB & GG and this is something to look forward to….
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….
GG & BB turn 12 today. Happy Birthday my darlings! May you be always happy….
This year’s birthday is a very low-key one, what with the PSLE looming over us. We’ll probably do a nice celebration after the exams.
I still remember the day they were born. They were born at 36 weeks and 3 days, which is considered full term for twins, but were still a month away from their Expected Due Date. I was very reluctant to have the c-section my gynae had recommended and wanted to wait till they were ready to be born. But, my gynae was a bit concerned for GG as he felt she was smaller and hence may not be able to survive the trauma of birth. When put this way, how could I refuse, right?
I was also told that babies who are below 2 kg will be kept in the NICU and there was a possibility that GG or even BB may not weigh as much as we thought, so the first thing I asked around when I opened my eyes after surgery was how much the babies weighed and I was so elated when I heard both were healthy and above the 2 kg NICU limit. Due to their early birth, both had to spend time under the photo lights for jaundice, GG more than BB and so they got discharged a day later than me. I was able to go home before them, but I refused saying I will go home with my babies.
They’ve both grown into amazing almost teens, articulate and determined. GG, who is older than BB by 2 minutes is a determined and gutsy girl who loves reading, music and drawing! I have a feeling she is developing into a fashionista, but we’re a way to go there. She has her faults, the major one being her temper and stubbonness, but she is also a very loving girl with a big heart and one who makes friends very easily. She is a very people person and can relate to most of them all the time. She doesn’t like Maths but loves languages and hasn’t yet decided what she wants to do in life. I’ve often told her she would make a good lawyer, but GG is still not convinced. She has a great, powerful voice, and is very good in singing, but likes to ruin her voice by shouting at her brother.
BB on the other hand, is more of an introvert, who is most content using his electronic toys (laptops, tablets etc) playing his games. He has steadily been in love with planes since he was 2 and shows no signs of abandoning this love. His major criteria for choosing a secondary school next year is if they offer the Singapore Flying Club as a CCA. He wants to become a pilot, but is also majorly interested in Science, especially Physics. If he can do both – become an engineer and a Pilot, he will do it, until then he will I guess decide on his future somewhere between these two. He also reads, but not much of fiction. His preferred reading is books on science, which are mostly non-fiction. He loves reading books on planes and playing flight simulation games on his laptop. He is the more easygoing twin compared to GG, but he also has his times of stubbornness. His most hated subject is Hindi and when it’s time to study the subject, he comes up with so many inventive excuses why he should not study it. Other than this, he is quite good in studies, and if he overcomes his latent laziness, he can really be top in his class.
So a very happy birthday to both of you as you come to the end of your childhood and enter a new phase in life, both in terms of age as well as school. Be happy and always strive to do your best. Make us all proud of you! God bless you always….
A short work week while Singapore went to the polls on Friday. The outcome was not entirely surprising, given that elections had been called a year early to capitalise on the euphoria of SG50 and the death of Mr. Lee Kwan Yew. This was a historic elections with every one of the 89 parliamentary seats being contested. What was surprising was the level with which the ruling party thrashed the opposition!!
We’re down to 2.5 weeks now for PSLE with the Listening Comprehension later in the week. I am planning to speak to my boss later today to discuss working half day in office and the balance at home till the end of next week and then working from home for the week and half of the PSLE exams.I also need to speak to him about any new projects since I literally don’t have any work in hand right now…
I also need to start looking for opportunities outside the organisation, but I think I will wait out the weeks till the end of PSLE.
We also booked our tickets to India for the end of the year, so looking forward to that trip and meeting my parents!
As the song goes….Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens…..from the Sound of Music, one of my favourite movies growing up. I must have seen the movie so many times that I think at one point, I could recite all the dialogues and songs, I loved it so much!
My favourite people in the world are my kids and S, followed by my parents. I think I can spend days with them, of course, sometimes each of them do things that infuriate me and irritate me, but I love them loads and can’t live without them. One of my secret worries in life is losing any of them – losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare and I am also the same, but everytime S is late and I can’t reach him, I start imagining the worst. Another nightmare I am still not ready for is for my parents to leave me. I know, logically and practically, this will happen sometime, but I want this to happen later than sooner. I am still not ready to not have my parents at the other end of a phone call!
The next thing I can’t really live without are books, of course! I love reading and as it’s evident here and in my other blog, I need to read as much as I need to breathe. This has gotten me into lots of trouble in school (think reading in class, material that the rest of them had not yet graduated to). I was a very precocious reader, very often reading books 3-4 grades above. In the school library, I remember there was this cupboard which was mostly kept locked. I used to wonder what was in there that they didn’t want us to read and once somewhere in grade 7 or 8, I got the librarian to open it up as I had read all the books in the shelves meant for us. There I discovered adult books. I remember reading George Orwell’s 1984 around that age. It may not seem great these days for a 12/13 year old to reach such books, but in those days, given that there was no internet, India was still a socialist economy, people didn’t read for fun. I was that oddball who wanted to read, not because it was mandated by school, but because I just wanted to. We didn’t have access to many books beyond the school library and I remember I used to beg and borrow books, so much that I used to read older students school books (subjects like History, Geography and English) just so I had material to read!
I am so glad BB & GG, especially GG share my love for reading. GG is a lot like me in this respect, she will probably read a lot and widely as she grows up. BB is more a non-fiction boy – he prefers to read what his passions are – which is usually something to do with planes, cars and trains (in that order). I have to push him to read fiction.
Another favourite thing is music. Most days at work, I am plugged into earphones listening to music while working (I am listening to new age music as I type this). I usually listen to Indian music, mostly Bollywood music while at work, but I also like Fusion, New Age and Classical (both Indian and Western). I rarely, if never, listen to western rock and pop. I may change my mind sometime, if GG & BB start listening to such music at home, but as of now, it’s not something that still appeals to me.
Travelling to new places, soaking up on different cultures and learning new things are among the other things I adore. Since BB & GG’s birth, we haven’t done much travel, but the last year or so, we’ve made it a point to visit a new place each trip. Now that they move to secondary school and are teens/young adults, I envision more trips in the future. I plan to start taking them around the region and then the world’s our oyster. We do need to make periodic trips to India to keep in touch with our roots as well as visit the grandparents and other relatives (part of keeping in touch with your roots), but I want to add small side trips each time to a different part of India. India is so vast and beautiful, with so much to offer, that it’ll take a while before we discover the whole country. I have a big bucket list of places to see before I die and should start making a serious dent on that list.
So here you have – a list of some of my favourite things. I’ll leave you with the song which inspired this post, Maria’s favourite things from The Sound of Music
Memories and Such 
