Krishna Pooja in my own little way
Gokulashtami is the birthday of Lord Krishna and it is celebrated by Hindus all over India in their own way. In our homes, it is intimately related to food as a variety of fried sweet and savoury snacks are prepared and offered to the naughty Lord Krishna who was known for His love for butter.
Since childhood this was one festival that I used to eagerly await as it used to be windfall of goodies. I used to crib about the fact that my grandmom used to make all the good stuff on one day and then for a few months to come, there wouldn’t be any of this stuff to eat.
But that’s how the Gods like it and that’s how it’s done at home.
Both my mom and Geeta chithi live in adjacent buildings which is an hour’s drive from my place. They’ve been preparing to make the bhakshanam for over a week by picking, soaking, drying and grinding rice to make fresh rice flour. Most of the savouries use rice flour as the base. My mom, aunt and grandmom generally sit in one of their kitchens together, in the afternoon. The gas stove is placed on the floor they prepare the snacks over latest family gossip and a hot cup of tea.
The stuff prepared is then divided into 5 portions for each one of us to do the Naivediyam in our respective homes.
The line up for Naivediyam is as follows:
Sweet aval with coconut and jaggery
Vadai
Appam
Thattai
Murukku
Uppu cheedai
Vella cheedai
Tenkuzhal
Sweets this time: Badam cake and Besan-milk cake
The sweet cheedais are known to explode like mini-missiles in oil if the proportion of ingredients is even slightly changed. I couldn’t make it to mom’s place on the day they were preparing the savouries-or else I would have had a field time photographing the various procedures. But I did manage to capture amma and chithi in the kitchen yesterday, making _suda suda vadai _for our favourite Lord. And that is precious footage for me 🙂
Geeta chithi in the front and Amma behind 🙂
WOW!!! Many varieties of sweets but i don’t know most of it.Do u have ur amma’s resemblance?
they say I’m her replica 🙂
Hi Nandita,You Treated “Lord Krishna” with so many items. Thanks for sharing.
Hi nandita, Are you a very religious person?
ANupama, No I’m not. I like following certain rituals but nothing major beyond that. I like a quiet prayer or an occasional visit to a temple. That’s about it!
krishna,guruvayoorappa!! I have to get to know gokulashtami,varalakshmipooja,and every other celebration happening back home thro’ the blogs now…I’ve lost track of the Indian calendar now…I’ve ask Amma now as to when Onam is!!Hw grand a pooja we used to have at home…these have always been a celebration of bhakthi and bhukthi for us at home!!A good array of naivedyam for god…
A great post ! Lucky you, both mom and chitti live close to your place ! While reading the post I was reminded of how amma would do the same procedure of drying washed rice and grinding etc .. That’s a beautiful picture of your amma with your chitti.
Thanks Krithika and Shynee. It’s so much fun sharing these little personal details with friends:)
Hi Nandita,I love your blog and the recipes, but I especially loved this post. I miss my folks even more now though :-(Nee
Hi Nandita -Thank you for letting us take a peek into your home and your celebrations of Janamashtami ! It is definetely a treasure to have your mom and aunt join you and take part in the festivities.
Wonderful pics Nandita, I was just chking my email and my mother too has sent me pics of the pooja at our home. I shud say the Naivedyam list is exactly the same …I miss being at home. The month of Shravan is such a torture to stay away from home with soo many festivals lining up the calender 🙁 Your Grandmother, Mom and Chithi are doing a wonderful job there preparing all the naivedyam. It shud be fun watching them gossip and churn out wonderful delicacies 🙂 And yes, u do look like a Xerox copy of ur mom :-)I hope the P in BPW changes to Prasadam for the next round up 🙂
Great pictures Nandita! You have quite a feast there! Your post made me remember all the fun I used to have during festival season.
God! I cant say how guilty I’m feeling having hogged on all the goodies while letting my gym membership run out. This time Lord Krishna has to do a miracle to prevent me from breaking the scales after eating all the bhakshanam in the name of ‘prasadam’Thanks Nee and Monisha for dropping by and leaving your kind words.Priya…he he so you observed the similarity haa?? So many of our homes share such similarities in culture that it’s funFriends, did you read my filter kaapi post, it’s being much neglected thanks to all the yummy prasadam.:)
Thanks for the interesting post. I like to learn something new everyday. Nice pics of Geeta chithi and Amma.Paz
Beautiful…and loved the look on your aunts face. She must have been so tired from all the work 🙂
that is such a sweet post! loved their pics!
They weren’t tired of the work, they were tired of me forcing them into models for my latest photography craze–that day I was in a Fabindia kurta and jeans and my mom said-it feels as though a journalist has invaded our home HeheheThanks Inji pennu, i love u your new name 🙂 I have a suprise for your GBP-was keeping mum till now because I didn’t knw if my secret plant was going to survive the heavy rains here
The line up of bakshanams sound yummy, Nandita. I am quite familiar with the exploding cheedais-has happened to me once! So I stick to the uppu variety now.
Ha ha yes Malini, it happened to my mom once, and I’m ever scared of those little explosives. But it’s fun to eat thoughLoveN
Thank you for sharing this with us.Your mom and auntie are beautiful!