Saturday, November 09, 2013

Deepavali 2013 - Ruchir's first Deepavali

Deepavali has always been the best of the festivals I have enjoyed year after year and this year's Deepavali was no different. Infact, it was a memorable one with Ruchir joining us for the festival, which made it even more fun. Even the incessant cyclonic weather could not dampen the spirit of the festival.

Nov 2nd - Saturday - 'Narakachaturdashi'. 
Pooja stayed overnight at Vinayadeep, while Souji, Ruchir and I returned to Chiguru. We were back @ Vinayadeep by 9 AM and completed the 'Arathi' event. We took a lot of pictures in the front yard and later had a feast of a lunch.

Pooja, Anna and myself went out to buy some crackers to the 'Donkahalla' field post lunch and later it started to rain. The rains stopped only by late evening which was followed by cursory bursting of crackers. We returned back to Chiguru later in the night.

Nov 3rd - Sunday - 'Laxmi Pooja'. 
We invited both our parents and Inlaws to Chiguru who arrived by about 11 AM. We all watched the acclaimed movie 'Argo' followed by a solid lunch of Bisibele Bath!

In the evening, the ladies and the gentlemen, and the little angels got dressed with their new clothes. We were joined by all the kids from the apartment at the basement and all of us burst crackers. 

This is the first time in 6 years, when we have actually celebrated Deepavali at our house. Generally, we end up doing this back @ Vinayadeep, but this time it was a change.

The folks across the length and breadth of the road came out in huge numbers and were bursting crackers. The sound of the crackers was deafening and the sky was lit with night crackers exploding the sky. We spent some time over the terrace of the apartment to watch the aerial display of night crackers exploding in the sky. 

Nov 4th - Monday - 'Balipadyami'
Anna and Amma left back to Hanumanthanagar in the morning. I had put in a day's leave to office and so wanted to make the best use of it. We dropped Ruchir and Pooja at Souji's parent's house and then visited Metro to get some stuff for home. We had a good eat out at Agarwals with Unlimited Paani Puri and Pav Bhajis. 

Sudhir was visiting from UK and was to meet up at Sreekanth's house. So Souji and I then visited Sreekanth's house where Sanjeeva too joined a bit later. Sudhir got caught up with official work and couldn't make it. We had to leave by 4:30 PM and so moved on.

Later we picked up Pooja and Ruchir from Souji's parents house and bought some extra round of crackers before going to Vinayadeep. 

Evening session of cracker bursting was fun with all getting involved into the action. Ruchir loved the night crackers as usual. The special cracker this time was the "Sky Lantern" also called "Aakash Butti". We followed in the instructions to the word and in 5 minutes we saw a wonderful lantern rise into the mighty night sky. It was a very nice experience and am sure is going to be one of the mainstay crackers in the coming years.

Here are some photos that were taken during the 3 days of festivities. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Ruchir's "Annamuhurtha" Ceremony

Sep 14th, 2013 (Saturday)

After 5 months and 11 days of being on milk, Ruchir finally received his licence for eating food outside of his milk regimen!. 

We performed Ruchir's "Annamuhurtha" Ceremony at our home, "Chiguru" and was attended by all the near and dear ones.

The ceremony started off by Ruchir receiving a load of gifts from everybody and later through a sumptuous Authentic, Traditional South Indian lunch served on plantain leaves with 5 different sweets catered just for him.

The sweets included 'Sakkare Holige', 'Carrot Halwa', 'Godi Payasa', 'Shavige Payasa' and 'Badusha'. His first pick was the 'Shavige Payasa', which I guess is the favourite choice that runs in the family!

It was also the first time the newly married couple Kiran and Deepthi visited our house.

Overall it turned out to be a grand, fun filled event and a big day for Ruchir! 

Here are some snaps taken during this event.