Diwali - 2004

This was my first deepavali celebration after marraige......Last year we were in transit moving houses, things and our life. Its strange to look back now and know that its been a year since you moved to a new place, sorroundings and made that into your home. We have new friends, new job, new everything. Somehow during the intial struggle of figuring out things you start to make your pattern in life....and suddenly you are living the life you were struggling to make...i'nt it interesting...

So this year deepavali, a long time away from my parents and my childhood friends, though was little home sicky but was independent. I got to make the decission of what sweet I wanted to make and what dress I wanted to wear.

The usual scene back home would be to wake up at 5:30 in the morning, amma would have hordes of work for me like cleaning the house and then she would make us sit in a specially arranged stool,(special coz there will be a kolam under it) and then give us the dreaded diwali legiyam.....got to swallow it in one gulp. To ease the taste amma gives a sweet which is usually okarai(one of my favorites) and then drench me in oil...(how I hate that......) .

Take a long oil bath and wear a set of old dresses before adorning the new ones. Amma explains it that if you wear new dresses on such a auspious day without wearing your older ones, the older ones would feel neglected and left out and they might curse us. So for formality sake wear an old nighty and then wear our new dress which are always expensive and gorgeous. Then parade the dress to all the neighbours, get their oooo's and aaaaaaa's. Then set about eating all the sweets and savouries, distribute it to everyone near by. Then starts the phone calls....."Ganga snanam acha"
There is always a competition between me and my friend Sudha, who takes bath first and gives a call to the other....its usually her who wins...coz by the time she calls me, i would have just woken up.
Calling up friends and relatives take the whole of morning. There are series of programs on TV by then. Got to choose which ones to watch in which channels......fight for the remote ensues...and then my brother would burst some crackers...help mom cook, eat a huge sumptuous meal and then pack some go over as a family to my aunts place where the whole family meets to celebrate Diwali together.

What a fun time we used to have with all my cousins!!!

This deepavali saw me preparing loads of sweets and savouries with the help of my other family friends. And i gave a small party to my American collegues on our sweets...P helped me a lot...She is an awesome cook...she made so many sweets for me that i might take a month to do justice to them!!

Evening will see me heading towards the temple adorned in the traditional sari, hopefully.....

Feel deadly tired...the weather is so lousy here and there is this guy sitting beside me always talking abt warewolves and vampires all the time....He thinks he is trying to scare me but he gets on my nerve all the time...

Chalo time to head home...

Tipi Travails......a nite of camping

Wanted to penn the beautiful nite of camping we did exactly one month back....early october......We selected a lousy weekend (weather wise) to do this... The temperature was predicted to go below 40 degrees..yet we were all on high energy...

we were abt 10 ppl...4 couple and two bachelor guys...and loads of FOOD!!
We had already planned of who should get what. So we had as planned bundled everything with our sleep bag and loaded our car ready to roll.

So everyone assembled into our place and we started on our adventure...it was a beautiful night. We went there by 5 and rented some bycycles and did some robust cycling. Hubby and me huffed and puffed on our poor cycles by all the winding lanes into the hill side.it was the most beautiful sight ever.

Soon we strayed away from others and were far off into the trail towards the park...and it was getting darker and we wanted to watch the sunset so we hurried back to join the group. While coming back there was this stretch which was a downhill slide and wo........did we have fun!! We rolled down to the ground in one whooping whoooooooosh!! This was more spectacular than the roller coaster ride that i most crave!

Joining the group to watch the sunset was a very poignant! Each pulling others legs we had our moments of rhapsody!! It was beautiful!!

Back to the tipi we built the fire and started to assauge our first pangs of hunger....
There were tonns of bhelpuri, paneer-capsicum tikka, lots of rice, bread and other savouries to devor upon! We played lot of games and our friend Vivek sang a very beautiful song...cmmonu baby ....something along those lines! It was very hilarious and funny!

More stories and general gossip! It was lot of fun!

It ceased being fun around midnite when my bones started freezing and i couldt move due to the cold. Though i was wearing layers and layers of clothes i was cold...All i wanted to do was crash for the day. Earlier that day I had been to another place for doing voluntary work and had to come back and cook for our outing! I was so tired...But i couldnt sleep as i was too cold...

I remembered the shava asana(the dead body posture) of my yoga which sathguru simulated for us after doing lot of prelimnery work, I reached that condition in no time that night. My body was ice cold and i felt myself out of it..I was moaning and so uncouncious..Hubby dear got so scared..he tried to warm me the whole night by rubbing my feet and hands but i had no feelings...we were really planning to leave for the car for warmth..but did not want to spoil the fun for the rest who were really enjoying themselves...somehow during the morning i slept for few hours .

Though it was one of my most horrible nights ever...I knew how it felt to be dead!
Morning was glorious and the nights ordeal was gone and forgotten!

We had a nice breakfast of nights leftover....romped around the park and were in general playing for some time...We hit the road back home in the afternoon!!

IT was an unforgettable camping experiece..!!!