saree

Navarathri 2026

This year we celebrated Navarathri by visiting friends and family across the bay area.

San was happy and that made me happy.

She did all the driving and logistics. All I did was match her Sari to the best of my ability and go sing in a lot of places where she was happy to sit back and listen. She also had to do most of the eating as I am allergic to lot of things. Felt bad that she had to pull this off solo..

Here are the pictures..

First the matching matching..

Once your head has stopped spinning.. you can take a look at this.. (except today, where I was not invited, made it all the other days).. The picture below is definitely prettier than the one above, without me being a “repeater drishti pottu”. This one needed the floor pose to cover up some gaps.. not all pictures were the same.. San was not happy that I kept using same backdrop in same location every day.. hope she sees this and understands why!

A gallery of all the Kolu’s and any dolls that were unique or caught my eye…(in portrait format)

Photos in landscape format..

There was a lot of enthusiasm, creativity from adults and kids in the doll displays this year! Hoe this gives you a good glimpse of our bay area navarthri visits..

We are at an age where the number of folks who don’t celebrate every year is increasing. We are all in fifties. That means previous generation is in their 80’s and 90’s. A lot of missing folks and kolus this year as well. Then again, time keeps going and they will come back the following year.

Got to learn 12 new songs and got to sing a few of them.. A separate post on that tomorrow. Have finally learned to admire Dikshidhar after all these years!

Indian festivals are amazing!

To each his own

One thing about the festival season in a south Indian brahmin family is the clothes.

Well, the guys get to wear their silk dhotis and the ladies come dressed like cute penguins in their madisaar saris!



It is an extra long saree (almost 50% longer) reserved for special occasions (usually red color) that they wear in a different way than the casual sari.


San will always be my hottie! She has always been cute to my eyes from the day she walked down the marriage hall and challenged me to be her husband. It was like a bull fightress with the red cape challenging a bull. To this day I am madly running around her, still unable to hit the mark!


To get back on track with the post, there is something about the madisaar sari that is a turn on. The casual San in her jeans and kurthi somehow magically transforms into a madisaar wearing hottie. It is possible that deep down somewhere the image of a madisaar mami is similar to how Hollywood movies portray the woman in her white wedding gown for desi boys like me!

Indian ancestors seem to have perfected the art of packaging. Cover almost everything, expose without really exposing, and let curiosity take care of the rest..

Well, as long as San keeps her "Koorai pudavai" in good shape and wears a madisaar once a year, she will still be my hottie when she is old and gray!

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