Tamasoma Jyothirgamaya..

Asatoma Sadgamaya
Tamasoma Jyothirgamaya
Mruthyorma Amruthangamaya
Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthi hi

Translated, it simply means "Lead us from ignorance to truth; From darkness to light; From Death to Eternity; Let peace prevail;".

Why the chant suddenly? The second line "Tamasoma Jyothirgamaya" (From darkness to light), I believe, is the essence of Deepawali. Yes, the festival of lights is back, though may not be with a bang :-p. Atleast not in US :-p.

Before I start off with my rants, first - Wish you all a very happy and prosperous Deepawali :).

This year there's still a tinge of pain that I'm not with my parents during the festival, but its not as much as it was last year. Two days ago I thought I was ok. But yesterday morning as soon as I got up, the first thought was "today is Naraka Chaturdashi and there is no sound of crackers anywhere :(". Later we did the enne shaasthra and again I was reminded of mom doing the shaasthra. Since Darsh wouldn't wake up early, she would wake me up so that I could sit with dad for the shaasthra. I miss it all :(. Shubha has written a post which is as if its coming from my heart as I can relate to it so much and absolutely suits my feelings right now..

Anyways, coming back to Deepawali (as if I was ever away :-p), it all started on Friday with the neerutumbso hubba :). One of the first things I did was to nenesu akki and uddinabele for the traditional Deepawali ereyappa sweet and khaara. Later I made both and they both came out very well (better than the last time and this time the mixer didn't break down ;-) :-D).




The dark brown ones are the sweet and the light ones are the khaara. Next I picked flowers (chrysanthemums of various colours) from our very own garden (a post on it is due next :-D) and made garlands :).




The flowers have been a delight as they have grown extensively and I have been able to use them for Vijayadashami, mainly for ayudha pooja. The car, cycle and even the lawnmower got decorated with flowers :-D. Anyways I'm digressing from the topic :-p.

Meanwhile Sri put oil into the hanathe (mud lamps) that we had got long time back, put baththis and lit them up. We lit lamps and performed pooja for the Gods in our devara mane first :).





The water heater was already full (neeru tumbso kelsa illa :-D), so I decorated it with arshina kumkuma (wanted to get chalks but I forgot :-p) and Sri did pooja to it.






We enjoyed the eateries and that was it for friday. Saturday morning, i.e yesterday, we got up, did enne shaasthra for both of us and had an enne snaana (oil bath) as per tradition. We did take some photos in the evening after the lamp and lights were lit.




If you squint, you'll be able to see the hanathe-s near my feet :-D. And the flowers you see in the garden is a preview of the post to come ;-) :-).




Atleast you can see the hanging lights in this snap :).

Later we went to Louisville temple and had a nice time there. There were hundreds of people there celebrating together and it was really nice :). There were some crackers being lit (both light and noisy ones), so it satisfied a bit of my craving for them, but not completely :(. I so so want to be in India during Deepawali time. Yeah there's lots and lots of noise as well as air pollution, and it might certainly be cruel of me to wish for things like that, but its the atmosphere I've grown up in. The festival air that lurks is so tangible there, the celebration so joyful. I can't help but miss it. Thats one of the reasons, we try to celebrate it as authentic as in India..

But Deepawali will be special to me no matter where I am, as it brought to me Sri. I met him on the third day of Deepawali (its tomorrow) and well, so its a festival close to my heart. So I better be cheerful atleast for that! Ok ok I'm ending my post now with a wish now in Kannada :).

ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ಹಬ್ಬದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು