Life is easy kya karein

The festive navratri is over. Learnt a lot and loved a lot in these nine days. In my mind, I still relive my Dhanbad navratri days. All good private garbas were organized by the Rotary club , Jain Jagruti etc post these nine days. the festivities continued till Sharad Purnima or the full moon post navratri. We would not want to repeat clothes. just borrowed Mom and Aunt s sarees with the three blouses maroon, black and green we had stitched before Durga Puja. Women danced, men watched. Then it was our turn to watch while men danced to Garba tunes. Later there was a round of Dandiya where men and women danced together. We almost never got to participate in that as it was way past midnight and our men cousins wanted to drop us home. This was usually at a place called L.R.D in Shashtrinagar, Dhanbad. How much ever the late nights we had, we rarely slept late in the mornings. This time of the year, all my Bengali friends were in Calcutta  for Durga Pujo. No facebook those days ...

I saw English Vinglish last week. In India, English has become the spoken language. Try going to a Mcdonalds or Indigo or Costa or a Five star  hotel and placing your order in Hindi. They will take it with certain looks. I usually go to our favourite Chinese restaurant and ask 'Sabji mein kya hai?' It means what is the vegetable dish you recommend. Well not exactly but loosely. This habit comes from Dhanbad where we used to go to Dhabas on the highway for dinner. The highway was called GT road aka Grand Trunk road. Its quite good now. Those days it was a two lane highway with villages and small eateries and garages. The trucks would be lined up through the night and Dad would spot the Dhaba or the eating joint through the row of trucks. There was a place called Hind Hotel. They would give whistles to all children made by an alcohol company. Round whistles half white and half  with transparent colours. My favourite was the yellow and white one.The place also had a gaggle of ...

According to the Hindu calendar, this is the shraddh period going on.  For fifteen days in a year, the ancestors are remembered and prayed to. No auspicious events / ceremonies take place in this time. People use the tithi/date of death to invite a Pandit and feed the departed soul. It means you remember the person passed away, give food to the Pandit and the crows. People keep a cooked meal on the terrace. They try to make the favourite food of the departed person. My memories are of my Grandma mixing and crushing all the savouries with her hands and when it was in form of  a paste, my Uncle would go to the terrace and throw the food for the crows. Crows in Hinduism are considered messengers of the departed souls. A lot of people feed Gathiyas to the crows for the full year. If your ancestors are happy, then your life goes well ,is the general belief amongst Hindus. The shraddh period falls exactly between Ganpati and Navratri. One does not buy a house or have...