Festive portrait week

The first two weeks of August are full of events for us. We have the Varalakshmi Nombu function where the women pray for their husbands well being followed by a home stress test for the husbands health with delicious food. The food instantly tests the workings of the stomach, liver, kidneys, pancreas and heart in one sitting! 

This is followed by Independence day wishing to Indian relatives and friends, attending local events in the US celebrating Indian Indpendence day (It is usually celebrated here as Fifteentho de Augusto for most folks with Kingfisher instead of Corona if you get the drift..)

This is followed by first day of school for the kids and all the excitement that comes with it!There is one Target in Cupertino where all the parents descend last minute to finish their back to school shopping and the place is as festive as Mardi Gras! 

Then comes Aavani Avittam where the guys change their threads, the women look gorgeous and the food trumps the Varalakshmi stress test. This one is for real. If you survive this feast, you are on your way to a good year. 

To round all this up there is Krishna's birthday, aka Gokulashtami which involves a lot of deep fried goodies and more great food! It is customary for us to go on some kind of long hike in some national park for Labor day to get back to normal. 

This year the festive season has started nicely. As usual I now have a doctor's visit this week thanks to a jaw locking problem. Do not know what it is with 2nd week of August and Hospital visits. My mom asked me on the phone "Usually you visit a doctor on Aaavani avittam week. Hope you are okay now!" That was Sunday monring and promptly I was at the doctors on Monday afternoon, and as it is with every year, this has nothing to do with the good food! 

This year the kids dressed up nice as usual and posed for portraits!

Here are some of the pictures..

This year they were very involved in the function. They gave the Haldi Kumkum to all their friends and took part in the celebration. This is a good sign if they are learning something from us!

More photos to come, if six pack sundar succesfully does his Aaaviavittam ... The next few days, I will be explaining to folks outside the yoga room to answer FAQ's of "hey, come your thread looks new?!" 

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!