A thousand moons

Last week was eventful for the family. My in-laws visited us. San's uncle from Australia also visited us. The big event?

My MIL's dad's brother crossed a 1000 moons! It is a big deal in South India and there is a grand celebration

- when a person crosses a 1000 full moons

- is still married to the same person 

The couple get to perform a prayer that is a mix of "thank you god for the 1000 moons and the happy married life" and a wish "for many more moons". Once they finish the ceremony, they get some kind of rock star status and everyone gets their blessings. In Chennai (Madras) where I grew up, this function is so auspicious that once the couple finish the prayer, folks who were not invited to the function just show up in a long line to fall at the couples feet to get their blessings. 

Used to see a few of these ceremonies as a kid. They are rare events in a place where life expectancy for men was 62 and women was 64 twenty years ago. A thousand moons is approximately 29,501 days .. and happens close to the persons 80th birthday. 

Given most of the folks who are in their 80's got married very young (some of it was child marriage), the ladies who survive this ceremony should actually be the rock stars.. at least that is my humble opinion. Putting up with any guy for those kind of periods deserves a lifetime achievement award. 

In recent memory, I have attended three of these ceremonies. 

First in 2005 (San was pregnant with the little one then and Jr. was a toddler) we attended my maternal grandpa-grandmas function. Still have great memories from that one.

Then in 2007 when the little one was 14 months old, we went for San's paternal grand parents ceremony. Was mostly inside a dark and dingy room in the marriage hall taking care of the little one, who was very cranky and almost missed most of the happenings. (have only a few photos from that event on my camera rolls!). It was a great party of sorts again with a large family.

Then there was last weekend. San's maternal grand-uncle celebrated it. Given he is local, they celebrated it here instead of in India. How they managed to get enough folks well versed in the Vedas to do the recitation and prayers was in itself impressive, not to mention them going through a long ceremony with a smile.

They reminded me a lot of my own grandparents. When a guy who is 80 can make his lady smile for his jokes and make her blush at times, after being married to her for what appears to be a jillion years, it is more than an example for the younger generation.

You get a glimpse of what it takes to have a long and happy married life.

I realized there is a lot of work to do on my joke list!

The next generation (my parents, in-laws, uncles and aunts on both my side and Sangeetha's side of the family) are all getting around the 70 year mark.

Our sincere hope that a lot of them make it to a 1000 moons and we get to see more such ceremonies in this lifetime.

We also got to see Jr. dress up in her half saree for this occasion. She is the same height as her mother now and has declared herself a teen, even though she has a few months to go before her 13th birthday.

Now the in-laws and Uncle have gone back, the house feels empty, save for the occasional fighting between Jr. and the little one.

San and me have only another 36+ years to go.. just typing that out made me want to go to the bathroom.

I plan to interview these people in detail and find out more about their winning strategies. 

Navarathri 2013

It has been a busy 10 days. Catching up on life after recovering from the tooth mainly involved ploughing through work, getting back to yoga at least once in three days and being on the chirpy side with the kids!

The weekend came and went and it was a blur. Partly because we visited golu after golu, and I managed to finish reading all three books by Amish Tripathi called the Shiva trilogy. The kids were just amazed by my ability to finish up 1400+ pages in two days. 

As usual the girls posed for photos before venturing out to visit the golus. 

Last year same time we did an experiment in merging their photos. To commemorate that, we did it again this year!

Last year it took me 6 hours to merge three photos. This year it took me 15 minutes. Practice makes perfect... or at the least practice makes you faster.

The golus continue till this weekend. Will post the actual doll display photos early next week.

Love the festivities. When the girls are happy, they leave you alone to read books and that, is a good thing!

Portrait Festival

Yes, every year during Golu season Daddy Narayanan organizes what is called the Portrait festival where the two girls have to pose for portraits after their dress up routine.

This years Portraits below..

Next year we have to custom stitch stuff for Jr. She has outgrown readymade Paavaadai sizes as of this year!

That means yours truly is growing old and needs new camera equipment to cheer him up! Certain fokls who are traveling in India right now need to make note of above statement...

Navarathri 2012 and the grand Golu's

This year we had a very different Navarathri (Navrathri) Golu festival. 

We did not invite anyone to our house because San went to India as soon as the festival began and we had to manage with Daddy's ability to dress the kids up and visit all golu's because they refuse to be dressed up by my mom. 

Given those limitations, did the best I could and if you think their hair could have been combed better or there could have been better necklaces or bangles, yes.. yes.. wholeheartedly agree!

That said, the whirlwind visits to a dozen places in a span of three days was a little too much for me to handle!

Did take photographs of almost all golus except Suja's (sorry!) and put them in a landscape gallery  and  a portrait gallery. So please check out the pictures! It is amazing to see that the golus in the bay area are getting grander and bigger every year. 

Seriously!

Last year I missed the golus because of the hand surgery to remove plate and screws just a day before Golu season started. More than made up for it this year!

You can check out previous golugraphy's for :

2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, ....

The three step ones have become 5 steps and the 5 have become seven and the grandest one went from 7 steps with a width of 5 feet to almost 10 feet! Truly amazing!

Some of the displays created by the kids were really cute and imaginative.. like this cow about to be captured by velociraptors ala jurassic park style in a field of methi grass..

or Vedhaville (my favorite).. why not name a ville after yourself and make it rhyme with your name?

and a hand made set done by a 9 year old..

with a rangoli to go with it! 

It was truly an experience having Jr. sing at most of the Golus and get some really tasty treats for all of us! 

It was also an eye opening experience for my parents to see that culture and tradition are alive and well and realize that just because we celebrate Halloween with great pomp, it does not mean we give up the Navarathri celebrations.

They probably saw what their grand daughters are missing, but still insist on not starting a doll display in our house because of some old ill omen stuff. For the sake of not upseting the kids, we steered the conversation away from that topic. 

We had a great time, not to mention the mege photo session that we had on Sunday!

Indian festivals are a ton of fun. Nothing is less than a day and this one spans 9 days.. so go figure!

The many Paavaadais of 2012

Paavaadai is the name for the south indian frock, usually made with silk and gold embroidery and this blog has a picture of my two little darlings in their new Paavaadais almost every October festival season as they dress up and go to the Golu's of friends and relatives.

This year having been very busy at work, did not get a chance to do the pictures before or after the golus on most days. So today we had a portrait session for 45 minutes. 

Begged them to co-operate for a merge photo and they did 3 dress changes in 45 minutes and we precisely engineered the seating positions.. the first set is below.

Just getting warmed up. Will post the rest over the week. There was one overlap that cannot be overcome on this set.. will have to figure a way around that tomorrow.

A big thanks to my darlings for co-operating!

More later.