India Visit Nov-Dec 2007 : Part 2 - The Functions

Ah!!! is my interest in blogging waning?? or is it just that I have had plenty of other things to do?? I think its the latter. Playing cricket and watching Ind battle Aus have taken up a lot of my time and more than that its the lap dance that I have been enjoying with my new Laptop. You beauty!!!! Its a Dell XPS M 1530 and its my first laptop.

Getting back to the series on my holiday, this one is about the Functions - both occassions and religious, that were part of my trip. It all starts off with a Satyanaraya Pooja at home. The pooja started barely 16 hours after I reached home (of course after the delay) and I was up that morning very early because of the jetlag. With lots of relatives arriving that day for the string of functions, it was a busy day. The excitement of being home and seeing all my relatives was good enough to overcome the jetlag and the lack of sleep.

The pooja went on very well and there started my tryst with full meals on banana leaves. Yum Yum!!!! 3 days later it was a couple of functions. Aayush Homam for my Dear Puttu Darling and the Kanakabhishekam of my maternal Grandpa. It was a wonderful day and Puttu darling in her cute 'Pattu paavadai'was the heroine of the day. The heroes of the day were my thatha (grandpa) and his great grand son (Pranav). The age difference was a staggering 93 years between the heroes. The occasion was one of joy for my Grandpa(and all of us) as he had all of his children and their spouses, most of his grandchildren and most of his great grand children. It was a wonderful feeling. For the uninitiated, Kanakabhishekam was performed to commemorate the fact that my Grandpas eldest son(my mama)'s eldest son(my cousin)'s eldest son(Pranav) was born :) A rare happening!!!!

The next day was the Shashti poorthi of my parents - celebrated on or after the 60th birthday of the husband. The Vedas describe 120 as the life span of a man and at 60, he ishalf way through life. At this stage, there apparently is a loss on interest in life and the purpose of the Shashti Poorthi is to tie the knot again in eth midst of children (who are in their youth) and rejuvenate life in general and married life in particular. A proud moment for us to get my parents "remarried". Again, this happened in the presence of the entire family and with some black and white photos as proof of the day, it was a complete affair. The Western culture of rewriting marriage vows when the husband gets to 60, is a similar ceremony.

After this there were 2 more Satyanaraya Poojas, one at my uncles place and one at a family friends place. I was part of both of them.

Now to the next function - this was my friends wedding in Chennai. I travelled to Chennai to see my friend from school (who is now in sydney) get married to his girlfriend of many years from Canberra. It was an Iyer-Punjabi wedding and the unique mix provided a lot of entertainment. Firstly it gave me the opportunity to meet with friends and see many more classmates who visited and then there was the wedding.

The Sangeet function which we turned into an Antakshari and Dance function was a whole lot of fun with a contrasting mix of 'Dappan koothu' songs & hindi songs & bhangra moves and pelvic thrusts :D:D:D I am yet to see the video. i will reserve my comments until i do see it. But i enjoyed the evening. After missing the wedding of many of my friends (all gals to date) it was good to be part of the wedding of this friend (the first guy to fall prey).

Phew!!! wasnt that a power packed set of functions that I was part of on my trip?? At first 5 weeks looked like a long holiday, but with all this going on, it started to look very short indeed.

In the next part I will write about the time I spent with Puttu kutty, my adorable niece :)