Been through a very very hectic schedule over the past few weeks. starting pooja holidays till date. Cant imagine how time ran by! This year Saraswathi pooja was a whole different celebration for me. Gollu (as we call it in tamil) had always been a hidden fascination for me. When I was a kid, I used to see it in some of the relatives house and a fewer times have helped them setting it up too. And in the famous Chidambaram temple, this has been followed religiously ever since I was a kid. Visiting the temple every year around this time just to see the gollu is like an important outing that every family does to actually feel complete of that year's pooja celebrations. I have personally seen a lot of aunts and grand mothers who have missed seeing gollu talking about missing it and feeling bad till the next gollu.
This year, my mother-in-law had set it up at our home in Hyderabad and she asked me to goto the neighboring houses and invite everybody home to see the Gollu. This was the phrase I had to memorize for that 'Maa inti-lo bommalu pettamu; perantaniki randi' ;) And my husband's cousins, 2 of them (Sindhu n Vandhu :D) helped me memorizing that. 3 of us went around the streets talking stories about the 'Vangipuram' family and of course, a lot about my husband :) When friends and relatives visited, gave them thamboolam and took blessings from everybody. The gollu that I had always wanted to celebrate at my own house and God had blessed me with that this year. Feels so glad and a lot of excitement still. Planning to do this at my Bangalore house next year, let's see how things go!
We visited few of the relatives for lunch, dinner etc ;) Lot of relatives, neighbors, cousins and friends I got to know in person, now my world is a little more bigger that consists of those people whom my husband had known from his childhood, a complete different feeling that can just not be described, learnt how important it is to be in touch with relatives and how actually the relationships of those kinds work in real time. At my husband's mama's house they had kept gollu too and that weekend being my mother-in-law's mother's thidhi, we were called there for lunch after the pooja. After lunch, I was asked to sing song. I sang ennavale, alaipayuthey kanna and kurai ondrum illai - all tamil numbers, but the 2 krishna genres actually has a series of his names and so not considered completely tamil tho'. And found out that the best moment of applause for a girl is when her husband tells her, "after a few years of knowing each other" (why this - is because applauds happen very often during the beginning years, but the same thing after a few years down the line is of a total different level of maturity that exists in the spouse and that was unfound all these years - something that strengthens the marital bond!) that she has done quite a good job and that it was more than what he actually expected. Yes, experienced that! that too for him, it was a bigger surprise that I could sing some devotional numbers, all by myself ;)) Thanks to the Veena classes and the early morning prayers my mom used to involve me in!
Had done my part to satisfy everybody. It was a great vacation and thanks to my husband for helping me be the way everyone there wanted me to be. After coming back, seems like my mother-in-law had got feedback from people around that she had got a good daughter-in-law that she went on to tell my mom that everybody there liked me and all the praises that they seemed to have poured. Mom was yet again a proud mother of this daughter and for me nothing in the world is worthier than that!
This year, my mother-in-law had set it up at our home in Hyderabad and she asked me to goto the neighboring houses and invite everybody home to see the Gollu. This was the phrase I had to memorize for that 'Maa inti-lo bommalu pettamu; perantaniki randi' ;) And my husband's cousins, 2 of them (Sindhu n Vandhu :D) helped me memorizing that. 3 of us went around the streets talking stories about the 'Vangipuram' family and of course, a lot about my husband :) When friends and relatives visited, gave them thamboolam and took blessings from everybody. The gollu that I had always wanted to celebrate at my own house and God had blessed me with that this year. Feels so glad and a lot of excitement still. Planning to do this at my Bangalore house next year, let's see how things go!
We visited few of the relatives for lunch, dinner etc ;) Lot of relatives, neighbors, cousins and friends I got to know in person, now my world is a little more bigger that consists of those people whom my husband had known from his childhood, a complete different feeling that can just not be described, learnt how important it is to be in touch with relatives and how actually the relationships of those kinds work in real time. At my husband's mama's house they had kept gollu too and that weekend being my mother-in-law's mother's thidhi, we were called there for lunch after the pooja. After lunch, I was asked to sing song. I sang ennavale, alaipayuthey kanna and kurai ondrum illai - all tamil numbers, but the 2 krishna genres actually has a series of his names and so not considered completely tamil tho'. And found out that the best moment of applause for a girl is when her husband tells her, "after a few years of knowing each other" (why this - is because applauds happen very often during the beginning years, but the same thing after a few years down the line is of a total different level of maturity that exists in the spouse and that was unfound all these years - something that strengthens the marital bond!) that she has done quite a good job and that it was more than what he actually expected. Yes, experienced that! that too for him, it was a bigger surprise that I could sing some devotional numbers, all by myself ;)) Thanks to the Veena classes and the early morning prayers my mom used to involve me in!
Had done my part to satisfy everybody. It was a great vacation and thanks to my husband for helping me be the way everyone there wanted me to be. After coming back, seems like my mother-in-law had got feedback from people around that she had got a good daughter-in-law that she went on to tell my mom that everybody there liked me and all the praises that they seemed to have poured. Mom was yet again a proud mother of this daughter and for me nothing in the world is worthier than that!
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