The Portico

Today is Vijaya Dasami. I am being nostalgic again! In fact all the festival seasons makes me nostalgic. Childhood beckons and memories comes rushing in to the mind.

Today, on the day of Vijayadashami, I did my Vidyarambham sitting in front of the make shift Pooja stand in my 2 bedroom apartment here in US. My Pooja stand is actually the top shelf of a drawer chest standing unceremoniously in the corner of the kid’s bedroom. It’s a very modest arrangement. The diety photos, the Ganesha idol, lamps, incense stick holder all kept in the top shelf-looks like as if they are fighting for their place in that small space. Samyuktha’s toys and books mightily occupied all the bottom shelves of the drawer. (I am making a mental note here: whenever I am moving to my own house, I will definitely have a proper place for the diety -May God bless me for that). My parents are here with me now and my dad did some decorations to the Pooja stand to make it look like a real pooja stand. Since its October , the Xmas decorations – the lights, golden ornaments etc are already available in Walmart and now you know the source of the decoration Anyways it came out well and all the deity is adorned with real flowers-.some marigolds and roses plucked from my small patio garden. Mom arranged plates with prasadam – beaten rice, banana, Jaggery, puffed rice, raisins .A plate full of raw rice and a gold ring is kept on top to write over the rice. With all prayers to the Goddess Durga and Saraswathi, I did my Vidyarambham in a modest way.

Here my mind wanders to a place –Aruvikkara ,my ever loving hometown in Kerala and time –Vidyarambham in the portico of my ancestral home ‘Puthumana’.The house is situated in a large property rich with greenery and the Karamana River flows through the property .Portico is the big  living room in our ancestral home .The room is enclosed by wooden grills in its 3 front sides and an adjoining room for diety worship (Thevaara Pura) & other parts of the house in the back. The  soft rays of the morning sun peeps through the gap between each of the wooden columns of the portico. Its floor is cemented and has a shining black surface. Even in the hot months of summer, the black floor remains cool as ever. (I am sure my explanation doesn’t do justice here.) And it is in this portico, members of the family join together for many occasions, such as Vidyarambham on Vijayadashami day. Perappan, dad’s eldest brother is the head of the family and does all the Pooja and arrangements. We all would have handed over our books to him to keep them for pooja the day before Mahanavami Day. On Vijayadashami Day everybody gather in portico for Vidyarambham. After the necessary poojas, Perappan will distribute the books to all. Everybody gets a pen/pencil, a quarter sheet of paper(not a bit more than that) , a Ramayana, Mahabharatha or Bhagavatha book. Then comes the fun part of writing.

We cousins start with 'Harisree ganapathaye nama'  and then proceed to write all the 51 alphabets in Malayalam language in the quarter sheet of paper given to us. It will go smoothly up to ‘cha’, ‘chha’, ‘Ja’. After the ‘Ja’ comes the villain – ‘Chjha’. Its always confusing owing to its multiple bends and rounds. Some of us will start to peep at the other person’s paper to see if he/she managed to write it correctly and if he/she does there ensues a mass copy . And the one who wrote it correctly, takes pride in his/her achievement –like “ u don’t know to write ‘Chjha’ ?! It’s the ‘Chjha’ as in ‘Chjhansi Rani" . The speed of English alphabet writing runs like a rabbit while the hindi goes like a turtle. Once the writing is done , we read the epic book that we received. The custom is to take the book, close your eyes and blindly select a page, then start to read from the 8th line in that page. Belief is that your luck for the year is decided by those lines you read from the 8th line. If I get the Ramayana Book I used to pray while blindly selecting a page that I should get a ‘Sundara kanda’ page –literally hoping the year ahead will be ‘Sundaram’ meaning Beautiful.

And then all start to read a page from their respective study book. All the budding engineering students might have silently prayed “Eeswara, suppli illathe ee subject nee onu pass aakki terane” . As the semesters passed, the suppli tension also reached high and so the no of books to keep for pooja.(Engineering drawing in S1/S2, Control systems in S3, Digital signal processing, electro magnetic theory in S6 ,list goes on…) . The most drooling part of the event –Prasadam distribution! Even though it can’t be said as the most delicious items, may be the atmosphere, the place, the togetherness & the fun made the mouth watering. The Portico was the place for many such occasions in our family. My Dad and 3 of his elder brothers, their children, grand children and my in laws lives in nearby houses in the same property. So for events like Onam, Vishu, Deepavali, and Pooja and for many family functions we used to join together in Portico.

That Portico is a part of my life. It contains not only the happiness and splendor on such occasions but also holds a good amount of grief, loss, sorrow and agony. There is much to say…The portico contains many essence of my childhood and in that childhood I was not alone. I was lucky to have such a wonderful childhood with all my lovable sisters & cousins. All these visuals passed through my mind when I sat there in front of my makeshift pooja stand. The Vidyarambham in Portico was the best Pooja celebrations I ever had and it will remain the same no matter where ever I live.

-R. (Originally written onThursday,October 6, 2011 at 4:16pm .Yeah, it took me yet another year to start blogging!)