Ayutha Pooja & Dasara

Just realized that it was Vijaydasami(Dasara) yesterday, when I popped open Hindu's webpage. Usually when I was in school someone or the other used to remind about all these, because it will surely come up during the conversation with the parents. Even if your parents missed to remind you, there would be at least one parent who reminds their ward about this and that guy would have cribbed about that with you.

I'm not quite sure about the other states. In TN Vijayadasami is the day after Ayudha Pooja(Festival for the Worksman), also called as Saraswathi Pooja. As a kid, it was one of those days that I was eagerly waiting for, Diwali being the topper of the list. Until I was in 8th grade, we(me and my brother) used to attend the early pooja at home and then head out with dad to his office. As he works in the Engineering Department of Southern railways, this day was considered to be an important one at his work. Almost 300 gang men and labours assemble in the office. They used to clean the tools, the trolleys and doors to a sparkling bright, with turmeric leaves tied on either side of them. Wherever you turn you can see kunkum, mangal, sandal applied in a particular fashion. Then there is a grand aarthi, generally by the senior office of dad's. After the aarathi everyone will be distributed with a bag of apples, oranges, rice pori, jaggery. Being the smallest kid, it was almost palpable that my brother was everyone's favorite there. We used to come back home, generally with 2 other men who used to carry bulk load of bags with sweets and other stuffs. For the next two three weeks mom used to try out different kinds of pori like masala pori, sweetpori, koathamali pori.

This day has one more significance, which is the main reason I like this day. We don't have to read on this day. Books were neatly wrapped and offered in front of goddess saraswathi. Mom used to apply kumkum on them, before placing them in front of god. I always used to give the text books of the toughest subject. Chemistry and Tamil text book of mine will always find a place. Then we take the books out from the pooja room, the next day and we have to read at least for sometime on the dasara day. There by it was believed that they were invoked with the blessings from the goddess of learning, Saraswathi.

As I grew up, things were different. Mom wanted me and my brother to learn all these customs. Generally my duty was to clean all pictures, clean the pooja room, then get all those vessels ready to be washed by mom. Then I used to clean my Motorcyle and bike. Dad used to do his. Then do a small pooja for those. Then we all assemble at the pooja room were mom used do the aarthi. We uses to chant some slokas along with her. Generally on these days there will not be any breakfast, on top it all those special prepared items like vada, paayasam, sweet pongal, etcetra will be lined up in front of your eyes, but you cannot touch them until the pooja is over and prasad is offered to the crow. Mom was very strict on that. You cannot even taste them until the rituals were complete. I was always ready to take the prasad to the terrace and come back very quick and lie to mom that the crow actually ate it, even though they never turned up many times. Come-on you cant expect a crow to turn up very fast, when it is 80 degrees outside and added to that, that’s the day when they are every bodies guest. So they would have already had 2 or 3 full meals and napping at some tree top. I would take the first step and initiate the thinking of eating. Dad follows me. He knows I can’t wait for it, but he really cannot wait too.

Once I joined college, this festival always used to come during the study holidays, that is when I would have just started to read something. You can't really spare a day. So I always ended up studying on those days. Mom never worried about it, since she always knew that she has to pay for the arrear fee if I had to fail in the exam.

Suddenly I feel I miss all this fun. You never care for all these when you are actually there. Its only when you are very far away from something you really miss it. A desi crib !! isn't it.