Golu 2012 - The Sundal'O Sundal Times

Navaratri wins hands down for my most favourite festival ever. It promises good food, enough holidays, pretty dresses, noisy (okay, and nice) people coming over and gorgeous golu. We always aim to have the best golu in town. That is how the theory of continuous improvement was taught to us. My mother and her team (me, the brother, household helps aka multitalented divas) wholeheartedly aim to get more besh-besh than the previous year. We start the planning process so early that we can plan a wedding in free time.True story.

Golu 2012. This is only a part of it. We had other arrangements around the living room. 

My mother’s ever growing appetite for pudhu-pudhu ideas never helped. There was a time she insisted on getting the entire ramayanam and we played along too. We went ahead and bought a couple of sets to support the idea. That is how the ravanan durbar happened. Another year, we were high on ramyanam and hanuman came home lifting sanjeevani et all. Over the nine days, loads of loud talking happened on how the next year would be and we conveniently ( thank god!) packed the ideas along with bommais into dabbas.

Golu 2010. The first one, I ever missed.

Don’t blame us. The truth is, golu is more than just an arrangement of dolls.  It is the stage Shakespeare spoke about; except this one is at a tambrahm’s place with extravagant amounts of sundal, filter cofeee and lambodara. Times like those, I realise there is a director Shankar inside every one of us.  When I was about eight, my mother got into this huge mission to dress me up every evening in a different costume. (did anyone think of a Shankar padam song, now. Comment it out, please) Me, being the chamathu ponnu and the narcissistic camera obsessed poser gave her the least trouble and was very happy to parade around. The idea was to have guests sit for “golu shows” with me and my cousin sing, dance or say suklambaradhaaram.

Golu 2011. This picture is my favourite. One of the kids :(

After some dog years went by, we went the intellectual way. Do not mistake me for the inquisitive child, I was more of the i-ask-tough-questions-terrorise-juniors kinds. We had laminated sheets talking puranams installed near dolls and made any brat below my waist length to answer questions. Once, me and my brother awarded one pattani to a child for pronouncing “dhritarashtra” correctly.

I tell ya, we really did it!

With all the emphasis on innovation, the families also get creative with sundals. Someone served sweet corn and peas sundal and another wrapped sundals in news paper for a beach effect ( please do facepalm and say ada, raama). My mom’s motto of devotion, prayer is clearly not cooking a dish so we do not have daily sundals at my place. However, thanks to crusading maamis and home-hopping, there is never a dearth of it during the season. I absolutely suck at this ritual of visiting homes during golu. I know it is all fun to drape in shiny stuff, but when you do the same thing for nine days, every year for twenty years, it totally fizzles out. Especially, when they serve oosi pona sundal or payasam-style tea. Me and my brother devised a ritual to behave at a golu such that everyone is happy.

·    Stare at the golu for two minutes.

·    Make a mental note of the pramadham features and try very hard to find ways to get it done in next golu. (brother skips this step)

·    Compliment loudly on something normal. Mostly stuff like..oh maami, the thoranam is just perfect or these dasavatharams are so lakshnam. (brother usually over acts for extra sundal here)

·    Evaluate sundal; this is an expert process of tossing exactly three lentils and analysing the kara-saram levels. If it meets expectations, continue with rest. If not, politely ask maami for plastic cover and dump sundal with a sheepish smile. Everyone assumes you are packing it home and is happy.

·    Get into vehement protests to the oru paatu paaden ma..and start intently concentrating on the sundal or the park. Here, I wish to record that I have NEVER sang at a golu. Even during my paatu class days. Thank you.

·    Get the pink plastic dabba or the 10,000 km well-travelled pachai blouse bit and make exit. Oh, don’t forget to take some kumkumam.

The ritual worked perfectly for us, with minor deviations when one golu had a PS2 set up and another gifted geometry boxes.

This post will end with one of my favourite pictures of the season. The brother with his shiny new SLR has taken fantastic photos. This is a small sitting area in the living room, now refurbished into a mini krishna-leelai set. There is also a raavana’s durbar to the far left. I had to miss posting pictures of the national integration set, the village and the dessert because this post has become super long!

I hope you are all having a fantastic navaratri there. Mine is mostly office, home with strangely, some sundal for lunch boxes. Have a festive time, and look all pretty. I am only a little homesick. Curable with copious amounts of payasam-tea.

Note: If you are interested to know the spiritual significance of Navratri, please read this post by Chitvish.

P.S : I had italicised with an idea to provide a glossary. Now, I fear that will run to a post. So feel free to ask ( and not assume) if you do not get a word. I appreciate it, truly.