Tag Archives: religion

The Power of Prayers

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I usually start the morning with prayers to the Lord and am trying to inculcate the same with BB & GG too!

As you probably know from my posts, I am a Hindu and am also bringing up BB & GG in the same way. I am weird in the sense, though I have rock solid belief in God, I am not a very big beliver in going to temples. I firmly believe that if you believe in God and don’t go out of your way to harm someone, then even a heartfelt two minute prayer in your heart to God will give you the same results as going to the temple. You do not need the outward manifestation of your belief to God. I posted about religion some time back, but this post is more about the power of prayers.

GaneshaLike I’ve said before, I have a very personal relationship with God and my personal God is the Lord Ganesh.

My daily routine is do a string of prayers in front of my altar at home. Hindus usually light the lamp in front of God twice a day and I do this in the morning after bath and in the evening after I am home. Once I light the lamp, I say my prayers. After this, I try to meditate for a couple of minutes and then have my conversation with him. The evening prayer is a much shorter one with a quick prayer after lighting the lamp. But I do have my conversation in the evening too, especially if the day has gone well for me, or I see his hand in something that happened during the say!

So does praying to God worth your while? My answer is an equivocal YES! Prayer is the vehicle with which you reach out to God or the higher divinity. It allows you to focus on the divine and helps a human being to become one with that one Universal Divine Being who can be called by various religions as their Gods!

Prayers also allow you to push your stress and desires on to your preferred God. This releases a lot of tensions in your lives when you move your stress to God! I remember there are days when my mind is full of things and I can’t sleep. Those days when I say a short prayer to Ganpati Bappa (Lord Ganesh) and tell him now it’s his responsibility to ensure that my problems are solved; I am able to sleep quite fast!

Do you believe in the divine and pray?

Random Musings

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For a while now, I have been drawn to this shloka from the Mahabharat. What it means is that “You have the right to perform your actions, but you are not entitled to the fruits of the actions. Do not let the fruit be the purpose of your actions, and therefore you won’t be attached to not doing your duty”. So basically what it says is that a person should do what is it that they are supposed to be doing, but with no expectations from their deeds.

I am so drawn to this that I actually printed it out, along with the meaning in English and pasted it in my workspace – so that I am reminded of this every single minute and just do the work I am supposed to be doing, with no expectations. So no expecatations = no disappointments right?

Who am I? A question of Identity

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I am all of the following – a daughter, grand-daughter, wife, daughter-in-law, mother and the myriad other relationships that we acquire as we move along in life. But at the core of all this is one identity that is uniquely me, which is ME! The ME who is a person in her own right, with an identity of her own.

This is so not Me

There are women who have no issues with going through their entire life as someone’s wife, daughter or mother. I know some women who have known each other for the last 30 plus years and still call each other as the other woman’s daughter’s mother. For me, this is something I can’t imagine. Imagine knowing someone and then not knowing or worse not acknowledging their own names – is that what life is all about? I for one refuse to call any of BB or GG’s friends moms by the names of their children. If I don’t know their names, I’ll make it a point to know it and then use that. Yes, we’re all happy and proud mom’s, but that’s not the end of our identity.

In India, most of the laws of Hindusim is governed by what is called Manusmirti or The Laws of Manu.  According to this, before marriage a woman is a subject of her father, at marriage her father passes her responsibility to her husband and if her husband dies before her, her responsibility then passes on to her son. Yet, the same Hindusim gives a woman equal rights as a man where a married man cannot undertake any religious ceremony without his wife sitting next to him and taking part in the ceremony.

Coming back to the topic, at marriage, a woman is supposed to be reborn and to ‘celebrate’ this, a new name is given to her. Some families force the new bride to taken on, formally a new name. So the name she was born with and grew up with is gone forever, and is will now be known as this new person. Her old name, harking back to carefree days is only a memory, which is taken out when she visits her maternal home. I have many friends on Facebook with multiple identities (that is have two first and two last names – pre and post marriage) who are living examples to this custom even today. This irritates me no end. Thank God I didn’t have to go through this – although knowing me, I wonder if I would have done it and whether I would have made a big fuss there and then?

This is one of the reasons I didn’t change my name when I got married (the other, more convenient reason being that I had to leave Mumbai immediately and so flew here on my maiden name and since then all official documentation has been in that name. This is the story I’m going to stick to!)

Saraswati Puja

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Today is the last day of the Navaratri festival with the Saraswati Puja and Dusshera tomorrow. Then it’s the anticipation of Diwali!


Saraswati Puja is celebrated all over India and across the world today with the day being dedicated to Goddess Saraswathi. In Hinduism, Saraswathi is the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, studies, science and technology, music, arts etc. She is also said to be the consort of Lord Brahma, who is said to be the creator of the world in Hindy mythology. Goddess Saraswati is depicted as a beautiful woman wearing a spotless white saree symbolising the purity of knowledge with four hands embodying mind, intellect, ego and alertness. She is usually seated on a white lotus or a white swan which is also her vehicle of transport, with a peacock close to her. She also holds the following in her four hands – a book, which is usually the vedas representing universal, eternal and true knowledge as well as her power over knowledge and the sciences; a rudrashka or rosary representing the power of spirituality, a veena, which is a musical intrument representingin her perfection in all arts and sciences and a pot of gangajal or sacred water which represent creative adn purification powers. Unlike most Goddesses in Hindu mythology, she is usually dressed very simply and not adorned with loads of jewellery showing that she prefers the intellectual and the artistic over the material.

Saraswati is also the main goodess of the Sringeri Sarada Peetham, which is what my family has been following for generations and the Jagadguru Shankaracharya at the Sarada Peetham is whom we consider our guru. I’ll post more about this later, just is just a teaser.

In South India and our brahmin community, we worship the Goddess on the ninth day of Navaratri. On that day, after bath, we keep books and some new clothes at her feet and worship her. I made a payasam today as the prasad. On this day, children also do not look at their books since she is supposed to be sitting on them and to use them is to disrespect her. The next day, we have to read a couple of pages from each book that was kept at the pooja so that she blesses us with good intellect and the most important thing for children – marks!

I’ve kept BB & GG’s books at the altar and asked them to pray to Saraswati Ummachi (God) so that she can bless them. They both prayed “Ummachi, please bless us so that that we can study well and get good marks in our exams“.

One of the first shlokas that I learnt from my ammama and have taught GG & BB is the one about Goddess Saraswati. It goes like this:

Saraswati namasthubiyam, varade kamarupini
Vidyarambham karishyaami, siddhir bhavatume sadaa

O Goddess Saraswati, salutations to you, the giver of boons, the one who fulfills all desires. I begin my studies. May there always be accomplishments for me.

The picture in this post is the picture of Goddess Saraswati in my pooja.

Nine Nights of Prayer, Dancing and Fun

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I really miss being in India during the festive season. Today is the start of the Navratri festival in India and everywhere there are Hindus. Navratri literally means nine nights and this festival, in honour of the various manifestations of the Goddess Durga or is celebrated with pomp and pagentry in different ways across the country. Everyday is dedicated to one form or aspect and the festival ends on the tenth day called Dusshera or Vijayadashami. Dusshera epitomises the victory of good over evil.

Goddess Durga and her various forms

Since almost all the festivals that Hindus celebrate go by the lunar calendar, Navratri is celebrated in the Hindu month of Ashwin, which corresponds to end September/early October every year. There is no definite date and the dates are determined every year based on the moon’s aspects.

Ramlila

While the whole country celebrates Navrati, the festival is celebrated in different ways throughout the country. In North India, people fast during the nine days and pray to the the various forms of Shakti by singing bhajans or devotional songs. The Ramayan is also performed during the nine days in Ramlila grounds with the tenth day reserved for the killing of the demon king Ravan. In the north they believe that the nine days of Navratri is the time Lord Ram battled with Ravan and it was on Dusshera that he killed him – hence the name Vijaydashami or the day of victory.

Dandiya Raas

In the state of Gujarat, Navratri is one of the biggest festivals celebrated. Here, a big statue of Durga is kept in communal areas and homes and every nights, everybody comes out to dance the garba and the dandiya raas. Nowadays the garba is rarely performed or if performed, it is done right at the begining and the rest of the time, it’s time for the dandiya. In Mumbai, the nine days is filled with people going to different dandiya grounds everyday and playing to their hearts content.

Image from Wikipedia - Durga Puja Pandal in West Bengal

In West Bengal, the last four days or Saptami, Ashtami, Navami and Dashami is the most important with the Pujos happening. Again like in Gujarat, there are big statues of Durga and communal praying and celebrations take place.

Golu

In South India, steps are created with golus which are dolls collected by the family and kept for the nine days. Married women and young girls are called home for haldi kumkum. It is said it is very auspicious to girl young girls (i.e. girls who have not yet started mensurating) gifts in the form clothes, bangles etc. In the south, the ninth day is also celebrated as Saraswati Puja where books and implements used for your profession are kept in front of the Goddess Saraswati, who is the Goddess of learning. We used to love this day as this was one day sanctioned by the scriptures where you should not study! The whole day the books are kept and on Dusshera, the books are taken out and then studied. In my family, we also wear new clothes on this day.

Image from Wikipedia - Jumbo Savari during celebrations in Mysore

In Mysore, Karnataka, the festival is celebrated with a lot of pomp and show and the Mysore Palace is especially lit up for the occasion.

The Navratri is divided into three parts of three days each. The first three days are devoted to Goddess Durga or Kali (the destroyer) and her different forms, the middle three days to Goddess Lakshmi (the provider) and her manifestations and the last three days to Goddess Saraswati (the giver of wisdom) and her various aspects.

The last day is Dusshera which is considered a very auspicious day to begin something new. Many parents who plan to put their children in school, have a small ceremony in the temple to start their formal learning process called Vidyarambham. We did this for BB & GG when they were around 2 years old. The ceremony had the parent use the index finger of the child to write an auspicious symbol (usually OM) so that that is the first thing they write.

So what will we be doing? Starting today, almost everyday GG & me (with BB tagging along) will visit family and friends for the Haldi Kumkum ritual. GG being a pre-meranche girl is high in demand and so I will take her wherever I go. On Friday BB & GG will be singing at a temple near our place along with their classical music teacher and friends. Then on Dusshera, we will go to the same classical music teacher’s place to pay our respects and start the second year of music studies! And in between all this is studies as this is exam season here!!