Guru Purnima

Yesterday was 'Guru Purnima'. Always heard about it but never got a chance to take part in such rituals or can rightly be said that never really bothered to know about it. Just knowing it as an auspicious day we offer special offerings to God. But, this year was something special. Akanksha was asked by her dance school to be present on this particular day as the school was going to celebrate 'Guru Purnima'.

On enquiring if we needed to take something with us, we were told that we can take flowers and sweets if we wish. So the father came home early loaded with lovely white fresh flowers, garlands and sweets. The ceremony was to start at 6.30p.m. and we managed to be just on time.

As we entered the venue the atmosphere was mesmerizing. On the left side of the entrance the portrait of their 'Guru'(Guru Bipin Singh) was placed on an alter.

All the students ore white colored tops and peach color phanek(a Manipuri wrap around). The students who ever came inside first offered the flowers, garlands, sweets, fruits and some even brought gifts and paid their respect to Guruji and went inside where all the students- young and aged stood together to start the occasion. The program started with the Guru Pranam, the performance of Chali and then the chanting of the Guru Shloka by all the students:

Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu

Guru Devo Maheshwara

Guru Saakshat Para Brahma 

Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha

The senior students started the performance and the juniors were also not lacking behind. All the performances were dedicated to their Guru.

 Also, there was a solo performance by Bimbavati Devi whose dances are always a delight to watch.

The young girls and the boys were also not behind. They too performed brilliantly. As such numbers of items were performed which were very colorful.

 

The junior girls performed the Manjira Nartan and Akanksha got the privilege to accompany them.

At the end, all the students again gathered together and paid their respect to their Guru by performing the Guru Pranam.

That marked the end of the occasion, after which all the parents, students and guardians were served with refreshments.

Witnessing the occasion made me realize that this day is dedicated to the Gurus or a Guru who is  a trusted counselor and advisor or can rightly be called a mentor. 'Guru' is a Hindu term for a spiritual or an academic teacher.

Guru Bipin Singh, a world renowned Manipuri dancer was the founder of Manipuri Nartanalaya, a dance institute where Akanksha is persuing her dance training and I am really thankful to Manipuri Nartanalaya and Guru Mata Kalavati Devi for making the students aware of this day from such a young age, so that they do not remain ignorant of such an auspicious day like I was till now.

I, too, paid my respect silently to all my teachers and elders on this auspicious day.

(The pictures could not be taken properly as all the performers were constantly in motion)

Jagannath Rath Yatra

Anything that is easily accessible seems worthless. It is human nature. But once we realize that we are deprived of it, we start craving for it. Such has happened with me or rather I would say us because it is about majority of our community people residing in Kolkata far away from our motherland.

We, the Bishnupriya Manipuris, are a small community from the north eastern part of India residing mainly in the states of Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. We are so small that most of the people of our country even do not know that we survive in this country. We being the followers of Lord Vishnu, considered Rath Yatra as one of our most important festivals. 

But far from our native land we started feeling deprived from our culture which was otherwise never so important. As such few of the community people met and decided that Rath Yatra would be celebrated in Kolkata by us in a small way. It was in the year 2004 that we the Bishnupriya Manipuri community started celebrating Rath Yatra in Kolkata. Today, the celebration that started from the drawing room of a relative, reached the main roads of Kolkata, facing many topsy-turvy situations. 

This year too on the 10th of July, we celebrated the festival in a very colorful way in accordance to our customs and rituals.

The deities (Balabhadra, Subhadra, Jagganath) are dressed in new colorful attires before taking to the chariot(rath)

The deities were placed on the chariot and Arti(pooja) is being performed before starting the ride

After the pooja the chariot is pulled with the help of the rope attached to the chariot. Pulling the chariot is regarded auspicious

The drummers and singers lead the rath singing various devotional songs

The devotional songs of the singers were mesmerizing which attracted lots of passers by who followed the chariot 

At places the artists performed various items that were of attraction to all

Finally travelling a distance of about 2 kms the chariot reached the destination where the main puja and the programs were to take place

The Chariot (Rath) with our society banner

Our priest ready to take the deities inside

The deities placed in the Ashana(throne/altar) 

The priests performs the puja

Devotional songs and slokas being chanted

The drummers ready to perform

One of the drummers showing his skill using three drums

Akanksha performing the manjira nartan

The ladies in traditional attires getting ready for the Das Avatar song which is performed by the devotees present there clapping their hands on the beats of the drums moving in a circular motion

After all the performances were over, all the devotees were served with the Khidchi Prasadam.   

A Proud Mother

By Akanksha

At times, I love to pamper myself by spending a few moments as I wish. That day too, I was doing the same. Engrossed reading a book minus the thought what my daughter was doing in the other room. 

But abruptly, my solitary moment was broken by the voice of my daughter. She came running to me and said, "Maa look!". She was having a painting in her hand. My eyes could not believe. She had actually tried to paint a painting of an eminent painter Shakti Sinha, her dad brought the other day.

by Shakti Sinha

She came to know from her dad  that the whole painting was done by merely using the fingers. No brush was being used. This, I suppose inspired her and she also did it by her fingers. She told me that Shakti Sinha is indeed a great artist, since he could even paint the eyes of the girl in the painting without using a paint brush. 

I was astonished at her deed as well as her words and realized that my little girl has grown up. She very craftily made me understand that she had used the brush to paint the eyes. 

But I was very pleased and proud seeing her painting like any other mother would have been.  

The Victoria Memorial

A perfect example of beauty and grace, The Victoria Memorial stands tall at the heart of the city of Kolkata.

Rabindra Sarobar

Today morning the weather seemed tempting for a calm morning walk by the lake. Since my man is not home, felt a bit hesitant but later made up my mind and set out for the venture. The weather was wetty because of the heavy downpour yesterday and also it looked as if it was drizzling the whole night. There was less traffic- may be because of the early hour/ may be people were enjoying the weekend sleeping late/ may be feeling lazy to get out in such a wetty weather. But I enjoyed the solitary walk to the fullest.

The lake is at a distance of 15 mins walk from our home. It is called the Rabindra Sarobar. It only takes one to have the courage to take the brave decision of crossing the gate of the lake. Once it is done he/she is bound to get boosted with the conscience of physical wellness. I entered the gate huffing and puffing and as I entered I felt I made the big mistake of not carrying the camera with me. Still I had my mobile. So thought that something is better than nothing and clicked a few pictures to share with you all.

This is a view from the gate inside the lake area. It has two roads by the side of the lake. One is this and the other one is made of brick on the left side. Inside this lake premise no vehicles are allowed. So, a stretch of not less than five kilometers honk free area amidst greenery welcomes everyone.

This one is the bricked lane by the lake on the left side..

These photographs were taken from the eastern side of the lake. Had it been taken from the other side of the lake which is more beautiful than this I had to walk another 20 mins which I was not in a position to, as I had to return home, that too walking. Will come up with more pics from the western bank some other time. 

 

The above two are the pictures of an island on the lake where lots of migratory birds come.

 

Moving a few meters forward I saw a few local boys engrossed in a game of football in the muddy field. There are three more such fields here.

There are two rowing clubs on the bank of the lake - The Bengal Rowing Club and the Calcutta Rowing Club.

Rowers busy rowing.

Rowers listening to their coach on the bank.

A tree that has dried up completely stood as the odd one out of all the otherwise green trees.

This is the bridge that flies over the lake and the adjacent railway track and moves towards my home.

Me almost taking pictures standing on the middle of the road minus traffic which on usual time takes more than 10 mins to cross it.

Returned home after the walk, fully content of the mind and the soul and completely drenched with sweat which helps control my sugar level and my blood pressure.  Concluding on a happy note that all days are not the same. Thank God!

An Utterly Unpleasant Day

Photo source here

Yesterday morning I awoke at the scream of my daughter. I looked at the watch first and it was like bloody hell. It was 8.30 A.M., I awoke exactly one hour after my daughter's school starts. Than I looked at my daughter, she was all teary. It was the day of her second round of selections of her Spell Bee Inter school competition. I had no words to console her. I was just thinking 'how could I do this', 'why did I not put the alarm on'. I re-collected myself since I had to face her. I apologized her and asked her not to  cry, since her tears were drowning Mama with guilt and said that God might have some surprise in store for us in it. Hearing these she tried very hard to control her sobs but somehow the tears showed on her face. 

To make her a bit happy I prepared her favorite egg noodles for breakfast and let her enjoy it watching her favorite TV program and myself set down with the newspaper. The headline literally made me sick- diesel prices hiked by Rs.5/- and only six cooking gas cylinders in a year. That mean again there will be price hike in everything - food items, taxi fare, bus fare and above all how to cope with only one cylinder per two months. I lost my appetite of further lingering over the newspaper and engrossed myself with household chores. 

Evening at 4 o'clock me and Akanksha set out for her Art School(class starts at 4 o'clock) and usually after that we go to her dance class but yesterday I agreed to her idea of going to watch a dance drama of her bestie, Meghna at Gyan Manch Auditorium. Though I am not in favor of missing classes but she was taking full advantage of my situation. To our surprise we struggled to get a taxi and we had to walk quite a distance to get one and by the time we reached for the class we were quite late but the teacher was very sweet and he allowed her to get into the class; though it was a different thing that if I would been at the teacher's place I wouldn't have allowed. :D

After the class was over I asked the teacher if he knew the address of Gyan Manch auditorium. He very nicely explained me the address and told if required he would draw it for me in a piece of paper. I very kindly thanked him and told that he was loud and clear to me and came out and called my hubby who was out of town for the address. He gave the direction and we reached the auditorium and made ourselves comfortable. I did not call Meghna's Mom since she would be busy and I did not want to disturb her. 

By the time we reached the hosts were felicitating the chief guest and the guest of honour and than the program started with a welcome dance by the children, which was not too impressive. Than a few little boys played the guitar and I told Akanksha that if she missed her dance class because of this than I was very disappointed. I could see the tautness in her face. After a while she asked me if we were in the right place. To that I opened the invitation card and saw that her doubt was right. I asked her to follow me quietly and coming out read the invitation card properly and found that it was scheduled for next Friday. I was so mad and felt stupid of not even going through the card properly and was just thinking what more surprise was in store for me. It was pouring heavily and we did not have an umbrella because the weather was quite pleasant when we left home. 

So started walking in the rain searching a cab but there was none. We walked for nearly two kilometers unknown of the roads since I was never in that area before. Still we kept on walking till we saw a known landmark, the Planetarium. Akanksha was very tired but I was in a hurry to reach home so asked her not to stop and keep following me and we walked till Rabindra Sadan, another five hundred meters walk and still there was no sign of a cab. Than I saw a bus and asked if by any chance it goes towards our place and the conductor nodded. I hurriedly asked Akanksha to board the bus knowing that she feels sick in buses. After we got down she was feeling sick and was not able to walk but still I was thankful that we reached home safe. 

Reaching home Akanksha asked me, "Maa what was the surprise that God had in store for us today". I did not know what to tell but replied, "We got to know where Gyan Manch is and we were able to find the way back home from an unknown place and it was no less than an adventure to go and sit in somebody else's program, after watching for full one hour suddenly realizing that we were in the wrong place", and we both laughed. I was trying to sound positive but I knew that it was no less than a nightmare to me.

All these things happened to me for the first time. For the first time I forgot to put the alarm on, for the first time I started late for any class, agreed to Akanksha's idea of missing the class for watching a program, for the first time I thought of not calling someone that I am going to their function and for the first time I did not read an invitation card properly and the outcome, everything turned out to be a nightmare.

Did you ever have such an aweful day?

I apologize to all my blogger friends for not being able to visit them regularly from last few days due to some unavoidable important engagements in my personal life and from now onwards will surely be regular.  

Sunset Painting

Tomorrow morning Akanksha is going to sit for a drawing competition. In the competition, the children of her age are allotted four topics : Pollution, Picnic, Road safety and Sunset, from which they have to choose any one.

Sitting over my idea of practicing the same from the last week, today morning, she suddenly became over conscious and started preparing for it. She said that she would be choosing 'Sunset' as her topic.

She started googling for sunset photographs. Than she asked if I have any photograph of sunset over the mighty Brahmaputra(the river at my native place, Guwahati).  I said I don't have, but than I remembered my blogger friend Rupam sarma from Guwahati, who have some stunning clicks of Guwahati. From his blog we searched the photograph below :

courtesy Rupam Sarma

Akanksha was very pleased after finding it. I told her that it would be quite tough, to which she too agreed but she wanted to give it a try. And the poor little soul tried really hard. She downloaded a tutorial from you tube to blend the colour of the sky and with the help of the tutorial and the picture above, the whole day she sat practicing the same, sacrificing all her cartoon shows and play. She tried really hard to bring the colour of the sky. She did more than 10 pages. The below two are the ones she first experimented with the color mixing.

Than she tried a few more.....

I told her that the painting below looks better than the others but according to her it does not look like the painting of a sunset. It rather looks like a full moon sky. :)..After a close look I too felt the same..

So, she kept on practicing more and this was the final one after which she surrendered and agreed that it is not possible to master the art in a single day..

She told me before going to bed that she would see tomorrow what she can do (as if some miracle is going to happen tomorrow) and apologized for not listening to my idea of practicing it. I did not, for a change, counter attack her and rather asked her to go to sleep and relax so that she would feel fresh tomorrow morning. She was quite surprised to find me not scolding her and so, very happily she gave me a tight hug and went to sleep. 

I too did not scold her because I do not want her to sit there to win. I just wanted her to understand the meaning of competition and also am very happy to see her sitting in the same place, patiently  practicing for hours. Though it meant providing her with her favorite chocolates and snacks in between and loads of promises of ice-creams, chocolates and visit to the amusement parks. 

Lets see what she does tomorrow. I feel, if she manages to do as she has done at home, my mission will be accomplished.