Tradition…. tradition…

Celebrating Vinayaka Chavithi, aka Ganesh Chaturthi, has been our family tradition since my childhood. We have continued it in the US, in our own way – which is a quick reading of the story in front of the deity (in our own mini shrine). Uma always makes the standard 3 items – Pulihora (tamarind rice), Vadas and Paayasam (vermicelli pudding) as prasaadam (offering). As the resident atheist, my role is to take memorable photos of the event and partake in the yummy goodies 😊.

We have never been sticklers for the actual date. We’ve done it on the weekend closest to the first day of school. We have continued the tradition of putting our favorite books (or the subject books which we needed most help with 😊 – like calculus or organic chemistry) at the puja (worship). There are a few years when Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were placed comfortably next to Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens or George Carlin’s Brain Droppings.  One year, Uma was in India, and the kids and I still kept the tradition going, even though it meant reading Amar Chitra Katha’s summarized version of the story.

Ganesh Chathurthi is coming up! You can’t miss it! The Indian grocery stores are packed with Ganesh idols and related saamagri (material used for the puja). Apparently, even HomeGoods is getting in on the action. Although they seem to also be getting a super head start on Diwali (which is not till November 8th).

HomeGoods is going all out for Ganesh and Diwali

I just realized that over all these years, we’ve only given our kids a taste of the Telugu version (and nomenclature) of the festival. Last year my daughter got an invitation for “Bappa’s farewell,” and she messaged me:

“Do you know what they mean by ‘Bappa’s farewell’? Is this someone in their family who died, or something about Ganesh? We are unable to go, but I want to reply appropriately. ”

After I stopped LOLing, I told her that it’s the Ganesh Visarjan (immersion or “letting go” in Sanskrit) and that Marathi people (from the state of Maharashtra) refer to Ganesh lovingly as “Bappa”!

“Ok phew! I truly didn’t know. Never heard of Ganesh referred to as “Bappa” before.  Google said it can mean father or Ganesh. Good thing I didn’t reply saying “sorry for your loss” 😅 “

Unknown's avatar

Author: Yash

I immigrated to the US in 1983 from India. I feel that I have been here long enough to not be called FOB (Fresh-off-the-Boat) by my kids. But I guess they seem to have some other standards which involve pronouncing words like "Vote" ,"Vending" and "Video" properly - which I guess I will never achieve (because of my 21 years in India) - so, I am going to pass myself as that Indian with an "exotic" accent!! My interests : WRITING - Just realized that most of my work so far has been Nostalgia-centric. I enjoy this genre and feel it's an un-ending well that I can draw from. As a matter of fact, this right here is fresh nostalgia for 10 years down the road!! (-: GOLF - I am terrible at it and it's a damn frustrating game, but I still love it ("painful pleasure"). One of these days I will actually take lessons so that I won't embarrass myself too much on the golf course. As long as there are golf courses around here (with low standards) that would allow me to play - I will play and enjoy golf!! STAND-UP - I have started dabbling (performing) in stand-up comedy recently and am loving the feedback I have been getting! I am going to attribute this newfound hobby to mid-life crisis! :-) (as an alternative to a toupee or a red sports car or a girlfriend-on-the-side!!). Here's clip of my very first performance on April 14th 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScMLgRAGyNs&feature=youtu.be MUSIC - I am a huge fan of Shakti (John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Vinayakram, L.Shankar) as well as their later avatar - "Remember Shakti" (John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Selva Ganesh, Mandolin Sreenivas, Shankar Mahadevan). Thoroughly enjoyed the two live concerts that I attended of this fusion group. I enjoy Hindustani and Carnatic classical instrumental music. YOUTUBE - YouTube has an unbelievable amount of entertainment from which you can draw your specific narrow niche!! In my case - these areas happen to be - street foods from various parts of the world, Indian classical music, debates about religion & belief, Indian Classical Music played by non Indian (e.g. Ukrainians doing wonderful Bharatanatyam, a French lady performing amazingly in a Carnatic Concert, a Chinese lady teaching Bharatanatyam in China etc.)

2 thoughts on “Tradition…. tradition…”

  2. Bappa farewell!!! Lol! Coincidentally, I just went to Homegoods this weekend to get a housewarming gift for someone and got one of those Ganesha things that’s marked for Diwali! 🙂 They have a whole section just dedicated to this stuff!

    Reply

Leave a comment