An Auspicious day - Janmashtami

There is an Indian thought: ' start a new work on an auspicious day for prosperity'. What better day to kick start by blogging than the day the kutti ( tiny) krishna was born. He was launched into this world by the Gods to clean up the earth of evil doers and provide vision/mission for the forever forest honing pandavas :)

Janmashtami is the Happy Birthday of Lord Krishna - the version 8.0 of Lord Vishnu - and is celebrated in a  fun way downsouth. As kids, my early memory of this festival is drawing little baby feet from the house entrance to our pooja room. My mom would make the kolam mavu by mixing rice flour in water.You dip your hand in a thumbs up format and use the base of your hand to make the impression of a tiny feet on the ground. Then you add five tiny digits to give the picture of a perfect leg. This feet impression through the house was done to depict the entry of the baby krishna into your house to your pooja room.

I remember one funny episode years ago, where my sister and I had attempted this feat. We drew the impressions with just one hand. Once done and it dried, we saw just one foot of  the lord thru the the house. Funny, that Krishna would hop hop all the way in :). To get a picture perfect entry, you need to use both hands to get both Krishna's foot impressions.

This festival is associated with some yum food too. Most of baby krishna's stories/folklores talks about him stealing butter. For the god, the main offering is fresh butter, along with baby food - aval payasam. There is one more killer food called 'Seedai' which is made on this special day. When you think about it though, 'why was seedai made for a birthday of a tiny tot who cant eat it' is still a mystery?

My early memories of seedai have been of sitting for hours rolling these tiny flour balls to be deep fried by my mom. If you get the dryness, the water content right, you will be blessed with yummy, crunchy fried flour balls. Else you would end up with flying, oil bursting, tiny flour missiles which can hurt you pretty bad!

There are two version of this snack - a salted and a sweet version. Both were made through the day and by evening, the house would be decorated with flowers, tiny feet impressions, smell of frying seedai, boiling aval payasam. By sunset, my hunger levels to taste these nice concoctions would have increased. The poojas typically are in the evening - as Lord Krishna was born in the night - post sundown and these offerings would be our dinner....

While i have fond memories of growing up and enjoying this festival, I dont remember celebrating it in the last ten years caught up in colleges, worklife madness. Today though i have a holiday for the first time in ten years and im off to relive some of that magic.

If you too want to make some seedai, check out this blog -  http://theyumblog.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/vella-seedai-sweet-marbles/  -  which i am referring to for my frying today!

Happpy Janmashtami!

Baby Steps

Better late, than never at all. I just realised that there was a sea of change taking place around me..... My friend in London sent an invite one day to see her new blog. My nephew updates his travelog in his blog. My friend broke the news of his new romance over a blog. I remember reading juicy office gossip over a blog. ....I realised that all around me people were embracing this blogger phenomenon....You get this global platform to communicate your thoughts, views, muse, news to like minded people. Now i have decided to take the plunge.... I have started this blog with my first random ramblings with hopes that i will be able to sustain it in the long run......Better late, than never at all......................