Happy Deepavali

A very belated happy Deepavali to all you friends out there. I hope all of you had a happy and safe Deepavali. It was on a weekend this year, which certainly was very helpful in making it a happy festival. As far as safe is concerned, we had no access to all those 100-walas and 1000-walas.. or for that matter to the bijli vedis, and hence was all very safe. Of course, we were’nt being very safe with our health. Like every other festival with the exception of Vaikunta Ekadesi, we ate an unimaginable amount of unhealthy food that I am pretty sure is the reason I feel heavier this week, and the same reason my daughter is sick with an upset stomach at home.

In preparation for Deepavali this year, I took the Friday off and spent most of the day putting my stove to work. My mother-in-law had already made a 5-cup cake and Manankombu @ Mul-murukku. On Friday, I started off making the badam cake using a recipe I got off the internet. I have to admit that it really was much easier than expected, and turned out very well. Right after, I attempted making the Kaajalu. My mother made it long ago, when we lived in Hyderabad, and we relished it a lot. Of course it appeared pretty complicated to make, and the end product looked very interesting. I asked my mother for the recipe and added a few things I picked up from the internet and the end product turned out really well.

We had bought our usual new clothes, sweater and jeans for me, t-shirt and jeans for my daughter and a shirt and trousers for my husband. I ended up wearing a silk saree though that my m-i-l got me for the Grihapravesam. It was late in the night before I was done cleaning up and setting everything to be ready for Deepavali the next day. My m-i-l made the Deepavali marundhu which a strong concotion of different herbs etc that are useful to act as an antidote for all the junk you consume during Deepavali. She also made the oil for the “yennai sasthram” – basically heated some Sesame Oil with an unbroken red chilli and anise seeds (omam). The night before Deepavali, the custom in my husband’s family is to make bajjis. Of course nobody wants to change such an interesting tradition, so bajji was consumed. That night, thanks to my co-sister V, we ended up putting on some mehendi and slept with our hands tied in plastic bags all night.

In spite of wanting to wake up early in the morning, it was 7 when I woke up with a jolt. My m-i-l did the “yennai sasthram” for all of us and we did our “ganga snanam” and wore our new clothes. That was followed by calls back and forth to India and other friends and relatives living in the US. It seems there wasn’t all that much of a fuss about Deepavali crackers this year. Kids these days think about pollution and their eco-footprints. We had our friends P, Fa and their daughter S over and ate a very heavy lunch. 

In the night, we had some sparklers saved from last year’s July 4 purchases. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed it. At the end of the long day, she told me she liked Deepavali – that made all the trouble so worthwhile!

And now for some pictures..

Thenkuzhal

Mul-Murukku

5 cake

Badam Burfi

Kaajaalu

Ready for Deepavalli

Yennai Sasthram

Sparklers

Deepavali – better late than never!

Happy Deepavali everyone. I know it’s really late, all of you feel like deepavali was long ago, like me you’ve finished consuming all the sweets and bakshanams that were made or bought, but hey.. I am still earlier than the fireworks at the local temple.

Unlike last year, when the TV had been screaming Deepavali for more than a month, and made me feel like an unfortunate soul – this year the lack of publicity on TV and elsewhere made me feel a lot less dejected.

We bought our new clothes – all three of us bought pants and shirts. The weekend just ahead of Deepavali was really convenient because I could make some bakshanams without having to lose too much sleep.

Our new Friday ritual has been having dinner at New Chola Indian restaurant not far away from here. They are the only guys in the neighbourhood that consider South Indian cuisine part of Indian cuisine. Their buffet has two sweets, and one of them is invariably either Gaajar halwa or Beetroot halwa. So, I was inspired to try the same. So, I called amma and asked her, and she said – “romba simple!”. I should have known that if she said that, I should probably re-think my plan after the year before last year’s Coconut burfi fiasco. But anyway she asked me to grate the carrot and boil it in milk “onga oor lae thaan full fat milk kadaekumae.. adhula panina innum easy” she said. Take just enough milk to cover the carrots she said. I did all of that, and somehow expected that when I opened the cooker, I would see something quite close to halwa and that all I needed to do was toss it around a bit with ghee to have some yummy halwa. But duh! When I opened the cooker, I saw what was pretty much carrot kheer. So, my plan of starting at 9 and finishing at 10 vanished in thin air. For the next four hours, I watched “The rise of the Taj” on TV (review of that cannot be public please) while my kheer became halwa. Of course it tasted great, what with the loss of sleep and all that. The next day I started early. I made Jilebis with the Swad Jilebi mix that was available at the local Indian store. It was pretty good when fresh. Later it became kind of soggy. I however felt that it was lacking that sour taste that jilebis usually have. I then made the usual Thenkuzhal and Ribbon Pakoda.

Bakshanam

On the morning of Deepavali, we managed to wake up in time, did our ‘yennai sasthram’, ‘ganga snanam’, wore our new clothes and left for work. My daughter was a darl all through it. The plan was to have dinner with P, Fa and S that night and then light up some sparklers, but boy was it cold, we decided it was not a good idea to stand out in the cold for sparklers. We had a heavy dinner, slept late and got to work late the next day. We did eventually fire up some sparklers the next day when it was a lot less colder.

 

Nalangu

Sparklers

In all Deepavali was good. I hope my daughter has some recollection of what she did this year, so that next year I can see her get excited a month ahead. Long shot may be.

  This year Deepavali is specially important. There are a lot of stories associated with it, but to me it always has been the time to celebrate. As a child I looked forward to the new clothes, the fireworks, the bakshanams, the holiday. As an NRI maami, I look forward to the new clothes, the bakshanams, the excitement on my daughter’s face when she holds the sparklers, and the welcome distraction it offers from the fact that winter is slipping in silently and coldly. This year, with the economy drawing to a virtual halt, there are people Indians and otherwise who are probably facing the brunt of a lost job or foreclosed home. I hope Deepavali for them brought back memories of happiness and cheer and filled them with the hope that things will be good again.

Hope you all had a happy Deepavali.

Waiting for Diwali…

This is the week, where officially, all desis who have in the past enjoyed normal Diwalis, realize it is no more a part of their lives, and replace it with memories of diwali in India, of well consumed mixtures, murukkus, mysore paks and badhushahs, and then go down the oft-trodden train of thoughts of.. ‘What am I doing here? I should go back to India… Cant save money, need to do all the work myself etc… ‘. On the day of diwali, we all call our parents, parents-in-law, grandparents, uncles, aunts etc.. wish them a happy diwali, and make sure that they indeed did have a ‘ganga-snanam’, indeed started with  firing the 100-wala, indeed wore the new clothes, and indeed call each other locally. Another every diwali phenomenon, is that, ‘Background lae pattaasu satham kaekardhaa??’, which usually one might faintly hear, and enthusiastically say ‘yes-yes kaekardhu’ as if it was melodious music that they have been waiting to hear their whole life. Once done with this, what we normally do is wear our usual business casuals, pack our sambar sadhams, pick up our laptops and head to work.

This week, because of my exposure to Sun TV and the gazzilion ads airing these days the above feelings were multiplied by 1000. Apparently in India, Diwali season has become equivalent to the Christmas New Year holiday season in the US, with regards to shopping. It is interesting to see how everything from laptops to silk sarees to jewellery to cell phones are on being marketed as on sale specially for diwali. Jewellery stores like Prince jewellery is giving away gift cards for clothes if you buy jewellery.

In the US however, the sales are in a totally separate class. This picture explains everything I would like to say:

 

So this is that time where I start thinking to myself.. What am I doing here? I should go back to India… Cant save money, need to do all the work myself.. (you know how this goes).

Happy Diwali to all you folks!