Makar Sankranti, is celebrated across Indian States as Pongal, Uttarayan, Lohri, Bihu etc as a harvest season as the revered Sun moves from Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere. As the Indian society has moved from joint family systems to nuclear families, celebration of festivals too has become more and more solitary. Namma Devasthana, a people's initiative, gave me a chance to experience a festival in a community setting organised by the community itself.
Usually auspicious days, are in high demand in India - this time it was the naming ceremony of our cousin's new-born child. So after completing our prayers and offerings to the Sun we had the prasad as breakfast and hurried to the ceremonial lunch. The rock music loving duo who just got another baby boy, looked excited for long sleepless nights ahead. It was wonderful to see the newly titled great-grand-mothers and grand-parents bless the newly titled parents. I could get a few of those moments captured. After a heartening Kerala lunch, we rushed back home to prepare for our community festival together.
As it was the festival of the Sun - Surya Namaskar was planned - so I kept my Yoga mat.
There were quite a few people expected from the neighbourhood - so I kept some water bottles and ellu-bella (the sesame and jaggery mixture which I had offered in prayers earlier) for sharing with them.
Other thoughtful people brought mosquito repellents and mats for all.
A rangoli participation was on the cards, so I brought out some colours bought ages ago.
On arrival at the Balamuri Ganesha temple, we saw several ladies already draw the rangoli using the white alpana powder. Well I tried my hands at an already in progress mutli-layered multi-petal imaginary flower with dots in every petal and leaves around it. I drew a few leaves before I left to admire others who were proficient and novices like me. There were couples who were doing it together and at a distance were little girls. Freedom to express what they liked - sugarcane, a pot full of harvest, flowers etc - gave an immense sense of satisfaction who got their hands "clean" in the white powder. For me it was extremely therapeutic and brought an immense sense of attachment to the leaves that I had drawn.
Next was gau-pooja or offering prayers to the cow. Cow being the soft hearted and giver of elixer through her milk, is loved by all. Children even a third the height of the cow, put turmeric and kumkum on the cow and prayed to her to continue to bless us. Jaggery and rice was offered as cow feed and the cow was draped in cloth as a mark of respect.
Mantra Uccharan (mantra-recital) by little boys and girls started off (who had written several shlokas on the Sun God in their note books). The same was led by an old pious lady who had taught them how to do so. It ended with a round of applause.
Andal, the Meera Bai of Tamil Nadu, composed two exceptional works in praise of Vishnu, in her short life of fifteen years. An excerpt of that was sung to remember her on this day - just as how the best loved poet saint of the Tamils, used to. Following this, my yoga mat came handy as we did Surya Namaskar facing the east and I ended up leading the children for the same. The saree obviously was not the best dress to do it in - but I still seemed to have enjoyed it!
The next thing was the Bharatnatyam dance recital by Devi Anuradha. The dance brought out feelings of immense bhakti towards Lord Vishnu among the spectators. One was about "Are you tired my Lord?" and the other on "I love you, Lord - more than any of my family". Before we knew the whole crowd was immersed in bhajans lead by the melodious group led by Shri Shanmukha ji - which slowly changed into dancing for the Lord and the joyous train Parikrama around the temple deity Ganesh ji.
Smt. Shakuntala Iyer introduced the concept of Namma Devasthana, aimed at building communities around temples for spiritual, cultural and economic upliftment of society around it. Today I witnessed spiritual and cultural side of it, and I am sure going forward if people start loving their temple and festivities and Gyan sabhas around it - several of the wasteful expenditures will cease. To make a temple near you, as "my temple" or "Namma Devasthana" just approach the temple near you and fill up https://docs.google.com/forms/d/16YFZnulIVAeb0Vdudv-fPrFOi-3M3OYNZWIErH2uKtg/viewform
The beautiful evening ended with distribution of bangles, haldi-kumkum, beetal leaves and a blouse piece to the married women, pencil cases for the children and a pot-luck dinner with friends who has signed up for Namma Devasthana (led by Smt. Renuka Gopinath)! You can like "Namma Devasthana" on Facebook and Twitter too!
Looking forward to the celebrations of the MahaShivRatri or the Great Night of Shiva on 27th February 2014 at Namma Devasthana!
