Madcaljan21’s Blog

 The Aaysh homam of  Manasa went on well last week. I thought I should  definitely share the interesting things happened before and after the aaysh  homam. Performing functions in India does not matter much, as we have lot  of helping hands for conducting  the event. The main thing is doing the  functions in US. Immaterial of the importance of the function, the way we conduct will be totally different. 

We decided to perform her Aayush homam on Mar 28’th , the Saturday, as her star was falling on that day. Initially we planned to invite only three families due to cost cutting. But then the real parents came live and we invited almost 20 families and wanted to celebrate it in a grand way. Somehow we never want to compromise anything even when we are outside India.

The only saddest part is we don’t have our relatives here. Especially I missed my parents. It would be such a colourful and beautiful function when performed in India. No other go, we sat down to write a list of things we need, the list went on and on.

As a first step we tried calling all the temples around our place asking them for rates. It varied from $101 to $200. So after discussing for a week we finally chose a winner who will be charging us  $150. The first major part was done.

Then the most important part was the food. Initially I planned to cook, but somehow my husband was totally against it. Initially I was happy that he takes good care of me by not letting me cook, but then I realised that he does not want me to dare his friends. I was a bit upset , then understood anyways that is true :). So we started calling all the hotels around our place for the rates. We were shocked to hear them say it would cost around $15 to $25 per food. The menu was so simple and the charge was way too much. Then we finally got a caterer number and fixed up a best deal with her. She only charges $10 per food and parupu thengai was complimentary. That was buy food and get two cones free. We really liked the deal. The next major task was over.

The list of items to be got for pooja was listed in the temple’s website. Look at the technology. We took the list from the site and started shopping for the function.

 The basic items included Aluminium tray, Aluminium foil,  Kungum, Sandal powder, Turmeric powder, Dried coconut,  water coconut, Mango wood ( for the homam), Samagiri ( for  the homam),  Panjamirdham ( curd, milk, ghee, honey, sugar),  puffed rice ( homam), kalasam , Cloth for kalasam, Flowers,  Garland ( we got boquet from safe way and made our first  garland) ,  rice ( to keep under the kalasam), dhoop sticks,  incense sticks, camphor, five varieties of fruits, betal leaves,  supari, cooked rice ( for homam), 5 cups, plates for camphor, trays ( sugar, fruits, dresses, paruputhengai, garland, sweets)

So the actual preparation started a week before the event. My mother in law was here to help us with the function and the formalities, as none of us have ever performed a function before. We made KAPARISI , which is a mixture of rice and jaggery. Doing any thing with this electrical stove is a big deal. Somehow we managed to look it like kaparisi. Then we also made coconut burfi , its a coconut cake. Usually coconut burfi is a easiest dish. It does not take time at all.  We took frozen coconut available here and we made burfi. It took nearly 1/2 hour and finally we were bored and we transferred the coconut mixture to a greased plate and left it air dry for 2 days. My mother in law was shocked to see this. It is the most easiest dish and it is taking hell a lot of time to make. Later we realised it was the mistake with the coconut and not the preparation. Finally after 2 days we got our burfis and believe it  was toooo good!!!.

Then the next task was decorating the house. We got few good stuffs from party city. We got a  5 feet 2 inches banner from the store. We had to stick the letters on the banner and it was really good. It looked like we ordered the banner specially. Then with few balloons here and there , few ribbons running around the house, few happy birthday slides, the house was really too good. The decorations were simple but still good. 

We then hunted for the return gifts. We did not like the actual gifts given to us when we went to other birthday parties. It was like so many things in a single bag. We wanted to get something different. Finally we got some plates form dollar shop, it was looking similar to traditional silver plates which we get in India. We got few dresses for new born babies, few puzzles for grown ups, addition multiplication cards for who just started schools. We packed the gifts the day before aaysh homam. We took the plate , placed some chocolates, kept the gifts and kaaparisi packet . We wrapped the whole plate with stretch tight and it was looking good. We stuck each and every families names on the gift to avoid confusion.

The day before the function was really a busy day with final touch of decorations, vacuuming the whole house, cleaning toilets and bathrooms, making garlands, arranging things for the pooja. Finally we hit the bed around 12.00. But I could not sleep through out the night. It was the first function I’m doing. We are responsible for everything. I was praying everything should go on fine. The food should be good and so many other things.

Finally the sun rose. I woke up 2 hours before the sun rise and was wandering around. I had to make Kheer that day morning for offering in pooja. Finally the heroine woke up around 7.00am. We sang happy birthday and she was happy. We had to give her oil bath. With “Gowri Kalyanam” song in the background, my mother inlaw ,myself and my husband kept oil on her head.  My husband bathed her finally after making me run up and down, asking me to get so many things. 

Slowly guests started pouring in. But the priest did not come until 8.30 and we were all tensed as the bad time ( raagu kaalam) will start around 9.00 am. Finally he came around 8.35am. As soon as he came we arranged for all the things that he needed. Finally the pooja started well before 9.00Am. It started with Ganapathy pooja, Navagraha pooja and then aysh homam. 

 We had taken off the smoke detector. We have been to so many functions in  US. But in any of the house the homam was just brighter than a match stick  light. But in our house, the homam was just same as we do in India. The whole  house was full of smoke and all of us were really tensed except for the priest.  He was sitting there quietly , but he assured us that everything is fine. So we did not crib much about it. Everyone were really happy seeing such function in US, and for most of them this is the first time too. By end of the pooja, our house was like heaven, full of smoke :). Hopefully we did not meet any cops on that day. We also did ANNAPRASHANA ( giving Manasa her first food). Then the traditional way of giving dresses to us. After all these the pooja ended successfully. 

Immediately after the pooja, we shifted all the stuffs from  the living room to master bedroom and vaccumed the hall. My husband did the vaccum for the first time, so everyone took pictures of the rare  event. Finally the food part. We had few good friends who arranged the food properly. We had ordered complete south indian meal. The menu goes like this Vatha Kuzhambu, Shambhar, Rasam, Cabbage curry, aviyal, beans parupusuli , friut pachidi, thayir vadai, appalam and pickle. Everyone was happy with the food and we were very much happy that everyone approved that the food was great. Meanwhile our heroine was a bit cranky as she woke up so early. We thought we will cut the cake once the lunch is over or else Manasa will cry at the top of her voice.

We waited until everyone had their lunch. Then we had the cake cutting ceremony. With everyone  asynchronously singing HAPPY BIRTHDAY our baby was really happy. But I was very fast and i started cutting the cake forgetting to hold her hands. Then followed by photo sessions with each and every family. The function thus ended sweetly as expected. Then the guests started taking leave. We bid them bye bye with the gift, betal leaf, supari and a fruit. The traditional way of bidding bye-bye. 

It was a nice experience having fucntion in US. We will learn a lot about every part of the function and we will get used to arranging things on our own. This is good lesson to us.