Unlike usual festival day, today I woke up at 7:30AM. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see my in-laws’ chauffer Iqbal too care of dressing up Pooja room door and main door with garlands and mango leave. I took his help and my maids help to get the entire Pooja room cleansed, and got entire infrastructure / items to conduct Ganapathi Pooja as close as possible, per scriptures. I took quick inventory via online portals and realised I do have more than 80% of 21 types of leaves required for Pooja. I purchased Eco-friendly Clay Ganesh kit via BookMyDarshan folks, and downloaded Pooja instruction MP3 file via online.
While Radhika and Aniketh was busy doing cooking delicious kudumulu and fresh and tender tamarind chutney, I conducted the Pooja using help from Revanth. Post Pooja celebrations, we headed to our cousins’ house for festive lunch hosted by them, on the eve of their 20th wedding anniversary.
I had asked my brothers and sister to share the clips of their celebration in our WhatsApp group. Here is a 2-minute clip of what happened. Highlight of the clips is making of the payasam, and chutney as a team.
Radhika asked me while sautéing hot peppers, “Shall I make it spicy ?: I answered her, “You need not ask us that question again. Our answer is always YES YES YES” 🙂
Yesterday, I had stopped by my Friend Srikanth Konda’s house for a morning chai without advance notice. When I called him, he said, he is at Harivillu Apartment next door, and was overseeing clay ganesha workshop. I stopped by to see him, and also to witness the making of eco-friendly ganesha. It was being organized by Srikanth, and his Wife Rekha one behalf of Bala Gokulam Bharat.
Rekha told me that they have added Tulasi (Basil) seeds to the clay this time. Instead of going through traditional immersion routine, these ganesha will be immersed in an earthen pot, which would give birth to a beautiful tulasi plant. In the workshop, kids are being taught on importance of Lord Ganesha, true meaning of the festival, need for being ecofriendly and more.
I took below 100 second footage on my S7 and powered it with beautiful rendition of Ganesha song by Shankar Mahadevan.
If you are from Hyderabad or any major city in India, odds are that you have noticed one of these huge Ganesh Idols in the traffic today. I was picking up Aniketh from a class today, and asked him to click this for me, as soon as I noticed a Big and Cute Ganesh Idol.
No, I do not encourage these big non eco-friendly Ganesh Idols. But, it was a good moment to capture on S7 and play it in slow-mo.
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