Of உப்பு/வெல்ல சீடைs and other good memories

My last post was on memories of varalakShmi vratam, but was made on ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம். Now this happened to be another majorly important day in Besant Nagar, and I almost wanted to make a post of all my ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம் memories (there's a lot of them with Manimma, and this was most likely the first ஆவணி ஆவிட்டம் in the US that I hadn't received a   ஸங்கல்பம் from Manimma), but then decided against it given how close it was (in time) to the varalakShmi vratam one. Called Perippa up after காயத்ரீ ஜபம் to get his blessings.

With almost a week gone by, and also Ranjana sending me some lovely photos of Manimma last week, I was just thinking (earlier today) that it was time to update the blog, when I saw Ambi Anna's email reminder that today was ஸ்ரீ க்ருஷ்ண ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ and asking people to share their memories of the day. Rajiv was the first to respond, and as expected, it was about the lovely பக்ஷணம்s that Manimma and Chitti made on the day :-) Aarthi followed that up with the following comment:

  Although we are not celebrating this year, we did what Manimma would have been proud of and what we should have started doing 4 years ago: we made the uppu and vella cheedais! If she had tasted them, she would have smiled and said it was good.

This same time last year we were in Madras for ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ and I sadly remember that making பக்ஷணம்s at home is all but gone, even in Madras ! So to make வெல்ல சீடைs and உப்பு சீடைs by hand over here is such a nice thing to do for Manimma that she indeed must be very proud. So thank you Aarthi and Rajiv, this is for you, hoping you will make many பக்ஷணம்s and keep some coming this way :-)

Also, here are some memories from this day last year

Chitappa, Siddharth and Kamakshi

Siddharth and Kamakshi with the "don't mess with me" look

And even though we didn't see Manimma that day (I don't think we did), we did visit a very special Manimma-esqe person, Kalpagam (Swaminathan) Mami (whom Manimma held in great respect) that day.

Vidushi Kalpakam Swaminathan Mami, 2009 ஜந்மாஷ்டமீ

Mami taught Vidya cEtaH SrIbAlakRshNaM bhajarE, and also sang anantabAlakRshNa mAmava and kRshNAnanda mukunda murArE. Now what a treat that was !


On that musical note, and to be fair to Rajiv, who also mentioned Chitappa hanging up lights and playing Pithukuli Murugadas's LP records along with the பக்ஷணம் memories, we conclude this post with some nice musical memories that Rajiv mentioned from janmAShTamI-s past (I actually remember these from our Jamshedpur days in the 70s !):

அலை பாயுதே:

பால் வடியும் முகம்:

|| śrī kṛṣṇārpaṇamastu ||

॥ श्री कृष्णार्पणमस्तु ॥