LiFe Is a DRamA

15/April/2010, Thu:

1. Vishu, one of the most important festivals for keralites.
   
2. Being celebrates in the new for the first time.
   
3. All the family has a chance to be together after quite a long time.
   

I guess that enough reason for anyone to be home. Same here! Thankfully unlike all her other activities, my manager never rejects the applied leaves of any of her team mates.

Reached home on the morning of the 14^th, this was the Tamil New Year. Now, another importance of this Vishu is that the entire family was together after 6 months. The last time all of us got together was in during October, 2009 in the previous house. Moreover, it's the first time everyone is together in the new house for the first time (house-warming ceremony not considered).

On the 14^th, all the preparation was for the main event of Vishu, the Vishu Kanni, which literally "the first to be seen on the Vishu day". It consist of a ritual arrangement of articles like raw rice, lemon (fresh), golden cucumber, Areca Nut, betel leaves, the yellow flowers konna, metal mirror, and holy text and coins, in an uruli (bell metal vessel) in the puja room of the House, with a lighted nilavilakku (bell metal lamp) is placed alongside. Now all this arrangement has to be made on the previous night. It was my main job to climb up and get the kindi, uruli, and nilavilakku and dad was helping with the fruits to be kept. Mom did all the major arrangements. As for my bro, he was not feeling well having got food poisoned, after eating a green apple. ("An apple a day; keeps the doc away", definitely wrong in his case. He had to always visit the doc when there is an apple involved).

On the day of Vishu, we got up before dawn (occasionally it's not an issue at all) and went to the puja room with our eyes closed so that the Vishu Kkani is the first sight of the new season. And it was a beautiful sight, really pretty with the lit lamp and all the decoration. Then comes the Vishu Kaineetam, which is mainly giving coins (notes these days), to the younger ones of the family. Well, i got around Rs 500/- from my dad, but it was my bro who hit the jackpot, that guy got 500 from dad, 1000 from me, another 500 from mom... HA HA HA...

It was really fun. Both, myself, and my dad were helping mom in the cooking, with me chopping the veggies and the dad with frying and cooking a bit. We left bro for the supervision since that was the only thing he was strong enough to do at that time. Anyways, the preparation part was really fun. I didn't lose my touch of cutting things up. The rest of the things was prepared by mom. And then the Sadhya, with a total of around 10 items (istew [made with coconut milk and potato], chakka thoran [made from jackfruit], aviyal [mixed veggies with coconut], kootukarri [made of channa, cheenna, coconut] to name a few) together with the two main dish (sambar and mango kaalan), mango pickles, and semiya payasam all on the banana leaf. Wow... now that was a feast. I was stuffed to the core. J

The only thing missing was the Vishu Padakkam, bursting of firecrackers. Apart from that an amazing and wonderful Vishu.