Update Holi-Celebrations

This is an update to yesterday that was 'Day-1 Minus Maid'.

In the evening the beautiful ladies of the condo got together for a superb talk-over-tea meet; and the food was aaa-haaa !! Mouthwatering and pure yummmmmm.
What's a Holi-party without any colors right??? So yessssssss there was plenty of color and we had such fun smearing color on one another !! The children also joined in and had their share of fun and running around.
It was Aadu's first time with colors on Holi; prior to this I would just use the haldi-kumkum as colors to let him the know the significance of color in the celebration of Holi.

Mid way through the play I asked him 'Aadu are you having fun?' He answered in affirmative; but when he saw more color on his friends faces he asked me to take him home for a bath !!! Remember this is the kid who can't stand a speck of dust on him or around him.

Went home gave him a shower; all the color came running down....then was my turn but I remembered there were door-mats to be rinsed and put to dry. So brush in hand; shower full on; I scrubbed the mats as clean as I could and as much as my strain-challenged arm muscles would allow. Quick shower and then slomppppppppp onto bed !!! Gosh I was tired........

Did not make dinner....Aadu wanted to eat Idli; so Papa was going to pack dinner for all. What a savior that was....I was really too tired to make anything.
Even then...could not finish dinner in good cheer; went to sleep zzzzzzzzzz

Diwali 2009

Diwali this year was celebrated on a grand scale at the Sawaikar residence. The wife made the 'faral' the sweets and namkeens that are served as snacks during this festive season. The items on the 'faral' list included:

1. Patal pohyacha chivda - a namkeen made of thin 'poha'. This has a tempering of curry leaves, green chilly, groundnuts, and puffed chana daal.

2. Sweet Shankarpale - these are diamond shaped fried snack made out of semolina & maida, sugar milk etc

3. Namakpare - thin, long strips of fried maida which has ajwain & salt.

4. Shev - again a fried snack made up of besan, and a few spices

5. A long-ish flat shev - a snack I found to be loved by local Indians, ingredients are same as the shev, only difference is the disk pattern used while frying.

6. Chakli - this is an all time favourite at our home, but this time I did not make it with the usual 'bhajani'; I just used the locally available ready mix and added some sesame seeds, a bit of black pepper & red chilly powder to it.

7. Besan laddoo - this one is coming to be a favorite with me & Aadu ; this is not your usual besan laddoo; in this method the besan is kneaded into a dough, then rolled into thick pooris, and fried, once this is cooled down it is processed in the mixie to make a thick powder; then a sugar syrup is made in proportion to this fried besan powder; once the syrup is ready, the powder along with huge amount of desi-ghee is added & this mixture is cooked till it becomes thick & a spoon can stand in it (that thick). Dry fruits are added along with elaichi powder & then this is rolled into laddoos....they turn out very delicious.

8. Olya-naralachya-karanjya (karanji made of fresh coconut) - this one I made for the first time, and they turned out quite a hit with the crowd.

This is the 'rangoli' I made outside our home during Laxmi-puja, it shows how inept I am at the art, I am very poor at doing the traditional 'dot-dot' wala rangoli patterns, that others find sooooooo easy to make....well I have my own ways...

This is the rangoli that Amol drew freehand with a chalk, and then we sat together and filled in the colors; it is actually a dot-dot wala design, but he being a better artist than me, he just flashed his arms around and voila the rangoli was drawn !!

Thus Diwali of 2009 was celebrated at our home in KL !!

Our Killa (fort)

These are two (not so good) shots of our Diwali Killa (fort) that we made for Aadu.

The base is a blue plastic tray that we usually use to keep Aadu's drawing papers. The outer wall is made up of Pizza boxes cut up and painted. Inside it the maid body of the fort has a base of soil and we used a toy bucket (up side down) to create to height variations.

The blue/purple cup that you see is supposed to be our water well. The trees were made by moi, just used some sticks as the trunk then the leafy part was cut out from thick paper painted in hues of green. the cut up paper was stuck to the truck with cello-tape and also some stapler pins.

We sowed some mustard seeds - that resulted in the green growth all over the Killa.

The idols of Shivaji, his Mavla (soldier) and the Gavlan (village milk lady) were made using white clay that we bought from Aadu's art class shop. They use this clay to make various articles. This is not play-dough clay but more like pre-kneaded plaster or paris. Very soft to use and finish was also good.

I may have some better photos of the killa, I promise to upload later...that is if I find them.

Eid Mubarak!

Today is Eid-ul-Fitr,or Hari Raya Aidalfitre, the biggest festival for Muslims all over the world. It comes after Ramadan which is a month of abstinence when devoted muslims observe fast from dawn to dusk.

Yesterday I did my Eid shopping from Mustafa and bought packets of of vermicilli,Rasgollahs,mustard,ghee,chicken & spices (mace & nutmeg) .I did all the shopping during daytime so that I could concentrate on the cooking part in the evening. Shopping in Mustafa while fasting was tough and yesterday Mustafa was really really crowded.

From around seven o'clock in the evening my maid started cooking.I made "phirni" and my maid prepared everything else except "pulao" and vegetables which taste better when they are freshly prepared.We were expecting some of my hubby's colleagues for dinner on Eid night.

On Eid day we woke up early for all the preparations.Faisal wore a new punjabi set and went to say Eid prayers in Ang mo Kio mosque. But he was late and when he reached there the Eid prayers were over!

After he came back we sat together for a while and then had our breakfast.Breakfast was bread,fried eggs and tea-what I usually have everyday.After a while we had "shemai" which has been prepared especially for Eid.It is roasted vermicilli cooked in milk and is a delicious dessert.

We were invited for lunch at a friend's place and so we set off for their place in the afternoon along with the kids.It was a big Eid party with lots of guests.We had a great time and it came close to Eid,as we celebrate it in Bangladesh, with lots of hustle and bustle and delicious food.

We came back home and my daughter had a great time watching shows like "Tinkerbell" & "Little Mermaid" which Disney Channel was telecasting for Hari Raya.

Even with guests the evening was quiet.The dinner menu consisted of "pulao",chicken roast, mixed vegetable & mutton curry. The guests left early as they were all were newcomers in Singapore.

Puran Poli - my first try at making them

The stuffed Puran-Poli



Yours' truly very busy and concentrating hard


The yummy sweet goodie - a well roasted puran-poli


The tempered-milk that we eat the puran-poli with


This Holi, I wanted to make it home-like for my son. Do everything (well most or better some things) that we did at home in India.
The day of Holi is a busy day, filled with the Puja, but before the Puja one has to make the 'Naivaidya' (offering) in the form of Puran-polis.
The puran-poli is offered to the Holi fire that is lighted in the evening.

Now the Puran-poli is basically a stuffed Chapati/paratha. The stuffing is made of Chana-daal, jaggery, and Elaichi (cardamom). The Poli/Chapati/Paratha is made using a dough mixture of wheat, refined flour, a bit of salt and lots of oil. Ofcourse water is the main thing in mixing the dough.

This Puran-poli is stuffed and roasted like any other stuffed paratha and some may choose to use 'ghee' (clarified butter) to roast them.

These are eaten with warm milk. This milk is tempered with 'saunf', 'elaichi' and even a clove. Jaggery is mixed in it once it is off the flame (or else the milk could curdle).

My favourite way of eating a Puran-poli is eating it the next morning, again heating it with a bit of 'ghee'. Yummmmmmmmmm ...I am already drooling :P

Well I made the Puran-polis all right, but we could not attend the Holi-fire and Puja at the Lakshminarayana Temple as the rain Gods decided to pay us a roaring visit.

Anyways, I am happy with the baby-step I took to make a Indian festival look authentic to my 3 year old. Maybe next year I will be able to make it more like the one back home.

My Gudhi Padwa

6th of April was our (Maharashtrian) New Year day, we call it 'Gudhi Padwa' in my mother tongue Marathi. It is the first day of the Marathi calender and the first month is 'Chaitra'.
This day was particularly good as it was Amol's birthday as well; so we made plans for a twin celebration but tried to keep it very simple as it would otherwise become a tiring new year day!!

The night before I sent off Amol with a list of things that I would need for the prayer, especially important were the Neem tree leaves as they are important part of the Gudhi. Well the Gudhi is actually a stick that has new clothing, Neem leaves, flower garland wrapped over it, and the top is sealed off with a 'kalash'. This gives the Gudhi the appearance of a lady dressed up in new clothes and jewels of flowers etc. It looks very pretty.

Well to continue with the 6th, I was really happy when Amol came home with an entire bunch of Neem leaves, and a lovely garland. Only thing that upset me was that he forgot about the garland/toran for the main door. But all in all I was very excited and happy to continue with the prayers as my son understands a lot of what is going on and what is being said, so I made double sure that I did things in a traditional manner as this is how I can show my son what our traditions are and what the reason behind doing all that are.

On d-day we woke up early and bathed, I got busy with the prayer getting all the basic things done, making the 'prasad' (offering) etc. Once the Gudhi was up, I did the prayers, then Amol and Aadi had their turn of offering prayers and seeking blessings for a good year ahead. Later in the day we had to go to the Lakshminarayan Temple. The evening was spent preparing a good dinner and the best part was that our friends Amisha & Praveen came home and added to our joy!!