Navarathri, Golu and Singing

The memories of navarathri days at home back in chennai is as fresh as ever. It used to be loads of fun. We had golu bommais of different sizes and shapes...My all time favorite was the chettiyar bommai, with its huge belly and ever smiling face..But the best part of golu used to be, making a park...wow..I used to put in all my creativity into it...Aim...My park has to be the best in the neighborhood....And I remember waiting endlessly for my small sprouts to grow, tending and watering them day and night (Sometimes when it doesnt grow I even had a thought of mixing the tablets in the medicine box and pouring it on the park so that it gets proteins, vitamins and minerals and everything possible and grows up soon...LOL)..the first sprout that came up always made me feel like God...cos I've given life to something...That was a wonderful experience..and then I used to have benches and kids and couples walking in the park,a small fountain...etc etc. It used to be a lot of fun.



Another thing that comes to my mind when I talk about Navarathri is sundal...there were so many varieties one for each day...and there were times when I was so tempted that I had it even before the neivedhyam (Offering to God)...of course amma never knew....as I was supposedly a very good girl :P (I hope she is not reading this...;)). And of course I had my share of sundals from other houses too...I used to dress up in Pattu pavadai and go to all the houses in the neighborhood to call them for the Golu...lil did I know that a torture was awaiting me in every house I stepped into...Oooh I will talk about the torture a lil later...My duties after coming from school would be to get the Thamboolam plate ready...Inside the cover to be given to all the guests I kept the vethala paakku (betel leaves, betel nuts, turmeric, flowers, fruits etc.) and a blouse piece (how boring!!!!) for all the mamis visiting our house...and for the kids coming home my mom let me select the gifts (like bangles, clips, soft toys etc...:D) and it was a lot of fun...cos I always demanded a bonus from that :);).





Now for the torture :P..we'd be invited to most of the houses in the neighborhood during this occasion and everyone starts off with "Oru paatu padu ma pakkalam" (Let's see if you can sing a song)...after a lot of nudging and grudging from my mom (ooooh I hated her when she did that to me)I used to start singing....and then all the mamis present (my amma always joined them....Grrrrr...you are supposed to support your kid....Grrrr...:P) will comment on the technicalities of the song...starting from raagam, thalam, brighas and most of them made a comment like "unnoda kural nanna irukku...innum practise pannina dhane nanna stagela ellam paada mudiyum" (You have a good voice..you can sing give stage performance only if you practice well)...I will give a big smile and think to myself..."if you are really interested why dont you learn and perform...why are you torturing me like this?"....and that's how I lost my interest for classical music...which I have regained after a long time...As an 8 year old I had no interest in learning the intricacies of singing...but liked to sing cos I liked it...It just came out of my heart and I did not want to put any mind in that. I had a big attitude problem when I was young...(I am not saying it has disappeared now...it is pretty much under control)...I could not take any criticism about singing, from others except from my paatu teacher....but being the good girl I always took it with a huge smile on my face...only that I was cursing them like crazy from inside (hehee...). Now that was the story of Classical music and me liking it, hating it and re-liking it :).





Overall Navarathri was a festive occasion with lots of food, people, music and gifts :). And here I do nothing but come to the lab and keep typing away my Thesis like a Robot...Well atleast blogging brings back some sweet memories.