This week, I received an email from Srikanth saying Siddharth's birthday celebrations went off well. I checked my calendar to see that today (the 24th in India) is Siddharth's birthday, and so I realized it must have been his star (நக்ஷத்திரம்) birthday. So Siddharth, here's wishing you many more happy returns of the days, and some photos from this day in 2008 (how time flies) !
It was when I checked the calendar that I realized that exactly a week ago (Oct 17th, also விஜயதசமி) was Manimma's birthday, and i am ashamed that I completely forgot it. In fact, after 9 days of doing some puja every evening for नवरात्रि, and usually doing a lot more on विजयदशमी, this was the first year that I decided not to do anything, and it had to coincide with Manimma's birthday :-(
नवरात्रि must have been special for Manimma because of her family's association with the Meenakshi Amman Koil. She told me (or maybe Perippa told me this) of how she was offered श्रीविद्या दीक्षा (Ambi Anna might know the details), but was advised by some family members against it, given how arduous the discipline is. Shown below is a (श्रीविद्या) "dollar" coin that Manimma gave us the last time we were in Madras.
Even though I didn't remember Manimma's birthday, I feel happy that Kamakshi picked the book that (Manimma and) Perippa gifted to us when we were in Madras to place in front of सरस्वती (for சரஸ்வதி பூஜை). She also did part (most ?) of the puja this time :-)
Siddharth's birthday is the perfect occasion to remember how good Manimma was with children (thank you Ranjana for these lovely photos !).
नवरात्रि must have been special for Manimma because of her family's association with the Meenakshi Amman Koil. She told me (or maybe Perippa told me this) of how she was offered श्रीविद्या दीक्षा (Ambi Anna might know the details), but was advised by some family members against it, given how arduous the discipline is. Shown below is a (श्रीविद्या) "dollar" coin that Manimma gave us the last time we were in Madras.
Siddharth's birthday is the perfect occasion to remember how good Manimma was with children (thank you Ranjana for these lovely photos !).
If I'm not mistaken the incident described below happened on the day the last photo was taken. Kamakshi was playing with a glass tumbler and I was shouting at her angrily to hand it over to me, with no success..
மணிம்மா:ஏன் டா குழந்தைய பார்த்து கத்தறே ?
Myself : கைல glass வேட்சுண்டிருக்கா மனிம்மா..
மணிம்மா: இப்போ ஒனக்கு அது வேணும், அவளவு தானே ?
காமாக்ஷி, இங்க வா மா
Manimma then held out a stainless steel tumbler and said: நான் ஒனக்கு இது தரேன், நீ எனக்கு அது தரியா ?
The exchange took 5 seconds, and I learnt a valuable lesson (or should have, but being a slow learner, am still working on it :-)
