Week 35: 25th August Monday to 31st August Sunday

It was a loooong week that began with the preparations for Ganesh Chaturthi. Every year we bring home Ganesha’s idol; worship him for a day, followed by visarjan in the same evening. So Chouti is one of the biggest festivals for us. Decorations + making Naivedya (food offerings) are the major tasks to be done before welcoming Ganesha. A wooden stool covered with a silk cloth, small banana plants tied to its four legs, and an LED light mala hung over is all we use for decorating Ganesha’s seat; And a small Rangoli in front. It’s a clay idol, with no colors, atte says the design has been the same from last three four decades now.

Our Ganesha

Decorations are Sujay’s responsibility, though he would need my helping hand. For Ganesha’s offerings, we prepare a variety of snacks—Vade, Chakkuli, Atrasa, Modaka, Karjikaayi, Panchakajjaya, Laddige unde, Yallunde. My mother-in-law prepares these; though she too needs assistance at the kitchen. But this year, I couldn’t help with either decoration or cooking because of Dhruva. I also missed making the big mala of 21 sets of Durva, each set with 21 strands—something I’ve always done. So I was not exhausted this Chaturthi since taking care of Dhruva was all I did.

Atirasa is my favorite among all the snacks. It’s deep-fried, soaked up in oil. Not exactly a healthy snack—but I crave it a lot! It’s okay though, since we prepare it only during this season.

Even though I wasn’t very tired, I didn’t feel like waking up the next morning—and Sujay felt the same. We noticed that every morning our bodies ache and we wake up with great discomfort. We suspect the problem lies with our mattress. It’s a box bed, 6x7 feet in size, thick and stuffed with lots of cotton, but after years of use, it has started losing its shape. So, we thought of refilling the cotton and flattening it. We called up Imam Sab, who has been in this profession for years. He’s quite an interesting person—he still rides a 30-year-old Bajaj M80, and I actually enjoy chatting with him. I asked if he had celebrated Chaturthi. He told me he took his grandchildren around the city to see all the Ganesha idols. “These caste and religion differences are only in the news—it’s all a political gimmick,” he says. I also noticed that in their community they don’t burn crackers, so I asked him about it. He simply said, “Burning crackers is like burning money.” He added that rituals used to be sustainable, but nowadays nothing is celebrated according to Shastra—everything has become show-off. Well, I agree on this.

When I’m tired, especially on festival days like this, and start feeling hungry, I usually make simple tiffins, like this khichdi. Seemi is a brand that offers millet-based products, and they’re perfect for quick tiffins. I particularly enjoy their khichdi and Pongal during evening snack time.

It’s been a long time since I have written about Dhruva. His sleep has gotten worse. he wakes up every hour, feeds before sleeping. His sleep regressions are killing me. But I can’t blame the little one; it’s part of his development. Still, I lose my patience and sometimes yell at Sujay out of frustration. I’m thankful to him for handling my moods so calmly. Dhruva turned 8 months old this week. He has started crawling. He doesn’t sit yet. Instead. He holds on to every object he can find and tries to stand up. He points at things and spends the whole day speaking in his own language, ammmm, bapbapbap, tatatata, tiktiktik. That’s very cute to hear. We took him to visit a few relatives this week. To my surprise, he was very social. He didn’t cry, wasn’t clingy, and adjusted so well, traits that I see to be rare at his age. Touch wood, I’m not boasting, but as a new mom, I find it surprising after hearing other parents’ experiences. He loves eating rice and dal, but he refuses to drink cow’s milk! Strange!

Ants are the biggest challenge during Chouti. When it rains outside, ants come into the house in search of food. With Chouti snacks around the issue doubles. Here is a piece of Atrasa that must have fallen when I was eating, and ants have circled around it in no time.

Back to what Skanda was drawing this week. He explained that he has drawn a scene from war between India and Pak. You can see a hill, on the left are Bad people (from Pak), and to the right are good people (that’s us Indians). Soldiers shooting, killing their king (I never know Pak had a king). In the next page he has also written “Skanda and Dhruva are brave fighters”. I could clearly see that this drawing is a reflection of what he had heard from school. It seemed like a mix of stories about kings and rebels, combined with recent war. PATRIOTISM. I was wondering how to address the hatred that roots in a child’s mind that all people from Pak are bad!

Green hill; Soldiers shooting everywhere, even hanging down from the hill; Those small triangles are bullets; You can see tankers with drivers inside; king with crown; he knows only Indian flag.

September is the month of renewing the subscriptions of The week, Reader’s Digest, Nat Geo, Sanctuary Asia and all magazines. Even though costly I like reading only the print versions. This time I took 2 years of Nat geo subscription, which costed me 116$ thats nearly 10k. To be very honest, I don’t understand every article that appears, language and concepts are difficult to digest. I think that’s ok as long as I am making an effort to read and understand.

Cheap thrills. Addicted to this choki choki choco milk sticks of 2 rs. I read that it’s a Malayan brand with a manufacturing unit in Telangana. Sujay scolds me for eating such ‘sasta’ chocolates, he is afraid of the hygiene. I don’t care.

See you!