⠸ Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya ⠸

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya

Lead me out of the darkness in to the light.

It's festival time, Shankranti or Pongal. A time of cleaning the house, doing thorough Puja, (more cleaning, prayers and offerings to Gods). It's a harvest festival, a new beginning, a time to thank the cows for everything they provide here. A fresh start, a family time. It's lovely to be here now. I feel it washing through me too. Fresh air, bright light, a new skin.

So many smiles, children handing out sweets and bananas, everyone wearing their best clothes, their finery, the fanciest rangolis get drawn and boys drink beer late into the night and set off firecrackers. 

This is the Puja corner in our house, some homes have whole rooms dedicated to the very serious business of prayer and giving thanks. This all gets cleared away and cleaned thoroughly every few days and fresh flowers and fruit offered to the Gods every day... Meditation is done here and chanting and burning of incense. I always creep into the house in the mornings after yoga as Puja is often being done. I learned my lesson after blowing through the house one morning like a demented sunshine girl high on yoga. Noone said a word, but I knew I had to be a bit more serene on entering the house in future. It's lovely and reassuring to creep into the house soaked with the smell of incense and flowers and breakfast is cooking and my dear Pushpa is sitting in prayer looking so tranquil.

Happy Shankranti means the livestock gets dyed, decorated and even more revered than usual.. yesterday I saw luminous dayglo pink cows in our road and didn't have my camera ready and charged...I managed to find this decorated cow later, with green horns and a crown of marigolds. You might know this already but Hindus believe that Krishna is going to be reincarnated as a cow so the cow gets the royal treatment here. Fed and patted and loved by Indian housewives everywhere. The cows just take it all in their stride. And then a day of make up and flower wearing and body paint. Lucky Cows! 

Happy Shankranti means that in the evenings the children all put on their best clothes and take a tray of bananas and a sweet mixture of dried coconut, nuts, lentils and jaggery around to all the neighbours houses.
See below my little pot of deliciousness~I love this stuff!

On my travels, I wish Happy Shankranti to people and they give me little bags of this mix which I must always accept gracefully and then when I go to another part of town and they wish me Happy Shankranti I give them the little bags of mix I've just been given and we just move bags of this stuff all round town! Last night the children came round with bananas and we give them bananas so the whole exercise becomes a banana swopping marathon. Hilarious. I said to Pushpa, make sure you pick the best ones and we'll have them for breakfast. Luckily I had a bag of packets of colouring pens I'd brought with me so I was giving them to the kids and became Queen Shankranti herself, which is as it should be.

I met this girl earlier, she was stunning. They are all knocking themselves out with the outfits this festival. I've been invited to a wedding next month, I am hugely honoured and very excited about all the colour and ritual. Perhaps by then I'll be immune to it. I don't see how though. I am as usual over stimulated.

And because of Shankranti the rangoli is even more elaborate than usual. My love of rangoli is never ceasing. It's still hard for me to get my head around the fact that these patterns are usually poured from a handful of flour. The flick of a wrist and this is what happens. True artists. I've watched them in action, I've tried it. I am never ever going to be able to do that so beautifully.

I just record it because it's gone by the next morning and a fresh one applied. Or the husband comes home from work and parks the auto rickshaw on your hard work.

Grounds for divorce?

Lots more rangoli images on my flickr page. I love it. It just makes me happy to think of the first job of the day is to wash the step and draw a new rangoli. Art and design and creativity first thing! And because it is made from rice flour the ants eat it which keeps them out of the kitchen (ants are a problem here but they are tiny little things or big big shiny ones, 

not inbetweeners like the UK ones)

What a brilliant brilliant beautiful way to solve a problem and bless the house at the same time. 

As you can see I am in ❤❤❤ with India