The Puja festival as I remember.

As a child, this was one festival that I waited for because it was only during those three days –encompassing the Durga Ashtami, Maha Navami and Vijaya Dashami - that no one asked us, children, to study.

Since ours was a joint family, the preparations prior to the festival were elaborate and each one of us used to be assigned a task which we did as meticulously as possible. Towards the run up, the ‘puja room’ was cleaned thoroughly than what was done in the usual manner, by wiping the dust off the photographs and statues of the deities. All varieties of flowers were collected and used for decoration in the most intricate manner, like making of garlands of different sizes to fit the photographs/statues. All our books along with the spiritual texts like the Ramayan, Mahabharatham etc were arranged neatly on a temporarily made platform, for the purpose.

My Muthachan used to lead the prayers and it was considered blasphemous to miss the prayer session, which always ended in a colourful ‘arti’ with everyone chanting a popular hymn. It resembled a mini temple within the precincts of the house. And during the three days of the puja festival, we children went to ridiculous lengths to ensure that we did not read anything, including the day’s newspapers and kept a track of which one amongst us had defaulted on this count – I remember, I used to be a regular member in this category quite often, much to the derision of the others. And Lekha tells me that during their times – being over a decade junior to me – they studiously avoided watching the TV lest they read what came up on the screen!

On the day of ‘Vijaya Dashami’, after an early morning bath, the entire family used to gather at the puja room for the prayers and after the usual procedures were completed, everyone read out a few lines from each of his/her books and the spiritual ones. Little children were initiated into the world of letters by Muthachan or other elders during such occasions and I’ve had the privilege of seeing my sisters and cousins going through the ceremony. And after the activities at the Puja room, a feast awaited us!

Tomorrow, after many years, my parents are going to have the same ceremony at home as my little niece and sister are there with them and they seemed to be very, very excited about it!