Bishu

Today is a special day for us. It is the last day of the Hindu calender year. On this day we the Bishnupriya Manipuri community make special offerings to the Lord. We cook different pure vegetarian delicacies and make the offerings on a banana leaf outside the main gate. The offering is done by the eldest member of the family. After the offering is done the cooked items are exchanged among the neighbors and relatives and than consumed. This festival is known as Bishu.

On this day the whole house is cleaned and the kitchen is mainly cleaned of all non-veg items. Once properly cleaned the food is cooked. On this day the alters and deities of every household is cleaned and new clothes are worn by all. It is said that in ancient times on this day the offering was made of 108 food items. But now a days due to many reasons it is practiced no more.

It is believed that by cleaning the house, wearing new clothes and worshiping the Lord everyone is preparing to welcome the new year with fresh enthusiasm and hoping for a smooth new year. 

But since this year my mother-in-law expired we are not supposed to perform this ritual. But I am sharing with you all a few photographs taken last year.

 

Since in this congested city life it is not possible to make the offerings outside the main gate, we offered it on our terrace.. 

 

Anindya doing the offering..

 

 Akanksha doing pranama after the offering..

 

The platter ready to be consumed. On this day we sit on the floor to eat our food..

 

Anindya and Akanksha sitting in the traditional way to have their food..

Since here we have no relatives nearby and no neighbors of the same community we do no exchange of food but we always share what we cook, with our landlord. On this day, we prefer to stay home and welcome the new year in a peaceful manner and also make it a point not to eat outside.

Emotional Farewell

Akanksha is gaining proficiency in the art of cake making. After the first cake she made she had excelled a lot. Now, she is always ready to bake a cake. Now my neighbours come and ask for recipes of cake from her. They even invite her to their home to make sure that the cake comes out properly. Is not it funny?

The above cake she baked on the 31st of March for our landlady whose birthday Akanksha never forgets. Our land lady was overwhelmed to see Akanksha bake a delicious cake for her.

Yesterday night she baked two cakes - a farewell cake for her cousin brother who is leaving Kolkata for Assam where he is going to join a new job and a birthday cake for her cousin sister who stays miles away. The cake was shared through facebook.

The birthday cake for her cousin sister

Her sister was very happy to see the cake on facebook and messaged back:

awww....thats so sweet of u all  thanks to all of you n special thanks to my lil sister..she made my day wid dis cake 

The farewell cake for her brother

Her brother cutting the cake at night since he will leave when she will still be in school today.

Everyone relishing on her cake

The two naughtiest cousins trying to tease her

Overall it was an emotional moment. From today we will be missing Ricky and Akanksha will miss her brother with whom she shared everything. Ricky too got emotional and wrote the following on his facebook timeline:

It's an emotional night for me.. M leaving this place without my will. Leaving another home..Kaku-Kakimoni, thank you will not be enough for what you did for me. Bappa da my roommate my brother.. thanks for being with me.. My lil sister Shikhi(Akanksha).. will always love you n thanks for the cake.. it was really very tasty.. Thanks to all.. thank you for the surprise.. Will miss you all  

I am happy and content that merely for baking a cake  may be, Akanksha will at least remember occasions and be able to value relationships.

Fan's resentment

Now a days, as I mentioned earlier, I am able to somehow control my anger and emotions to some extent, which was not possible earlier. it is not that I do not have mood swings and neither it is that I do not get angry. But now, I seem to realise and control it.

We women had lot of things to get disturbed. Moreover, we Indian housewives are pampered by the maid servants so much that their absence seem to make us mentally misbalanced. Since my maid left me in the mid ocean with all the uncleaned kitchen utensils, laundry, cleaning, cooking etc., my temper always remains at the saturated level, ready to explode at the simplest of pretext. 

But of late, I am somehow able to guard my anger. But yesterday was an unusual day. The whole day was passing off quite pleasantly. Hurriedly I tried to complete my house hold chores as in the evening Indian cricket team was going to have its world cup final match against Sri Lanka. 

May be, as I was born in a family of sportspersons or may be because of the cricket crazy country I belong, I am not sure, I am very much inclined towards the game and its outcome effects me a lot. In this series India had won all the matches. So, there was a believe that it will win the final too. 

With all the positivity in mind and prayers at heart, we sat before the television at half past seven in the evening. Maybe, because the Indian players were not good at bat or the bawling was not to the mark or maybe the Sri Lankan's played a better game than ours. Whatever may be the cause yesterday we lost despite a wonder game by Virat Kohli. We lost the T20 World Cup Final.  

As the match ended I felt as if all my energy was drained out. I felt sick. I was angry. All of a sudden everything seemed to disturb me. Suddenly I realised that the whole day I was busy with my household chores and the husband went to his sister's and even after the match got over he was not home. I called him and asked him to come home. I had such an unusual feeling. I felt like crying. 

Getting my call my husband came home and at the very sight of him I was caught by the women instinct and started attacking him with all the stupid allegations. Basically I used him as my punching bag to drain out my anger. When I do something like this, he never reacts but yesterday it was different. As I punched him with sour words he punched back with harsh words not at me but at his nephews, who came to visit us. I felt very bad. I was ashamed that for me the innocent boys were attacked by their uncle.

But then I realised that the resentment of loosing the game was not within me only, it was in him too. The whole house was silent as if we were mourning somebody's death. Such is the craze of cricket in India I suppose, where no 'Secret' works.


Photo courtesy : Google Images

The Secret

 I am basically a very impatient person. I get irritated at the smallest of things. I do not like when things does not work out the way I want. Also there is a believe in me that if the morning when I wake up is not pleasant my whole day gets ruined. This attitude of mine effects the people around me, I understand that but I cannot change my attitude.

Yesterday was the worst of such a day. In the morning I woke up with a call from my maid that she will not come to work anymore because of some personal problem. The news was as if I was struck by a thunder. But for a change I did not react. I just started to do the house hold chores. 

The next was that my daughter was driving me crazy from quite few days to visit our neighbour who had shifted to another locality. They have a little boy for whom she is mad. Since her school is beginning from today I thought of taking her to visit them yesterday but after calling came to know that they are out of station and that they would be reaching home at night. That plan too did not materialise. But we have fixed a visit today. 

Then, I was all ready to go to the lake for an evening walk. Our driver, one of the most punctual person I have seen in my life, for the first time did not turn out without informing. After calling I came to know that he had some urgent task for which he could not. This task also did not work out.

After that I thought of visiting Akanksha's doctor. No, Akanksha is all hale and hearty. We are to visit her because her swimming enrolment form needs her doctor's declaration that she is fit for it. The doctor, whom on our tenure of 10 years of regular visits have never seen to cancel her chamber, did cancel it yesterday. For a change I did not have any mood swing.

The AC mechanic did not turn out even after repeated reminders that the AC is not working in such a temperature when the mercury had touched 40 degree centigrade and we are just boiling in the heat but still I did not loose my cool.

Normally, one or two such incidents are enough to  loose my temper but to my surprise I was normal yesterday. I could not bring out the reason of my change. But at night when I was in bed a thought struck me - Is it the outcome of reading the book 'The secret' by Rhonda Byrne. 

From last few days I have been reading the book. I  completed the first book and started with the second edition 'The Power'. While reading the book I thought that some things are very good but most are bluffs, which are always better said than done. The book says that when you think something negative you attract more negativity to it. So, we should divert our thoughts from thinking more negative things to something we love to do or thinking about a person you love. I was not practicing anything as such but unconsciously I was trying to ignore whatever unpleasant thing is happening to me. Though the whole day everything that happened were negative yet it was for sure that it did not effect my mood. 

So, now I am wondering if it is the effect of the book? If it is than I am glad.

Photo courtesy : Google Images