Navarathri / Dasara doll arrangements!

Happy Navarathri / Dasara to all of you!

Navarathri, is a festival of Dolls, esp in Southern India. We arrange dolls of Gods, Goddesses and other stuff and pray everyday, for 10 days or nine nights (nava-rathri).

Here's the arrangement we made this year!

If you've seen our arrangements a couple of years ago here, you'll notice some changes. We try to make some additions and deletions and rearrangements every year, and this year, we added this Mount Kailash, abode of Lord Shiva. This is again from my parent's collection.

This is Mahabalipuram, with a beautiful background, which Dee bought as an addition this time.

And this cricket stadium is also an addition to previous years'.

Check the batsman, ready to bat!

And no, here comes our creation for this year! After the park last year, we wanted something different this time. Having visited Khuri, in Jaisalmer last year, we decided to create a Desert Village and here it is!

Though we couldn't create the pattern on the dunes anywhere close to the Creator, we did manage it somewhat decent looking, i guess!

Found these camels with a great difficulty, at the last minute!

And here's some arrangement of flowers and Kundan Rangoli.

Enjoy! Happy Dasara, once again!

Proud of you, Mom!

Mom has won the first prize in ‘Masthi Kadambari Puraskara’ for this year for her new novel in Kannada titled “Mane”. Masthi Venkatesh Iyengar is a legendary Kannada writer of the last century whose works in the field of Kannada literature are immense. Now ‘Masthi trust’ recognizes budding writers each year and rewards them for their work.

The felicitation ceremony was held yesterday, on Gandhi Jayanthi, which was presided over by honorable Chief Minister of Karnataka Mr. Yedyurappa, who released the book as well as felicitated the awardees. So Mom was on the same stage with Karnataka CM!

The CM also unveiled two volumes of “Masthi Samagra Samputa Avalokana”, compiled by Sri Mavinakere Ranganathan, President of the trust.

This Kadambari Puraskara is a strict competition, where the panel of five renowned judges are kept unaware of the writers’ names and asked to judge the novels. Only after the decision is made that the authors’ names are revealed.

This time, all the first three prizes have been bagged by female writers!
Details:
1st prize - Mane by Saraswathi Nataraj, Rs.30000/-
2nd prize - Kicchillada bege by Dr. Kamala Hemmige, Rs.25000/-
3rd prize - Kamini thalpa by Usha Narasimhan, Rs.20000/-

Congratulations and proud of you, mom!

P.S.: All above pics are shot by Dee :)

Navarathri - A festival of dolls

In school days, apart from 2-3 weeks of mid-term holidays, Dasara was a special season - full of celebration, decoration, nice things to eat, lot of visitors at home....

Dad, mom and we would all arrange the steps, decorate walls and ceilings with color papers, hang silk curtains out of mom’s sarees, get down the big carton of dolls, stored in the attic, arrange them all, put serial lights, help mom with making many varieties of snacks and sweets for guests.....

And this was one time of the year when I would take my friends home, mom and dad would invite their friends, our teachers, relatives, people in the neighborhood, and the house will be full of visitors.....

It had been missing it all from the last few years. This time, I made up my mind to do it all, albeit in a smaller scale, in my house and relive those moments again. I convinced Dee and in-laws on this, got home a part of the packed dolls from mom’s place and started out the venture. Dee, who was reluctant in the beginning, had his creativity coming out of from some hidden corner and got so fully involved and made such good arrangements.

Top view of our park

We started out making a park first time, not sure how much of sand and mud should go in for some ragi to grow, and look green!!! With a lot of phone calls to mom, and suggestions from in-laws, we got it to a decent looking form.

We got little niece Hima on our side, by involving her, and giving her a role to watch out for anyone touching the dolls, and complaining about them to me! This made her feel responsible and engaged, and she never disturbed the set up. She in fact was so delighted that she kept on hugging me and telling me, “Atte, gombe super!!” Ahh... what a moment it was!
And she called this doll in the park, with a dog as "Hima and Bruno"...
Ok, so we arranged everything, in whatever little time we got. I realized how difficult it is to take out time for all these, after a tiring day at work....... We invited some friends, but couldn’t invite many more And managing so many visitors was also a challenge! But after all the efforts, it was rewarding. I felt great pride in saying these are my parents’ collection, most of them over two decades old, when someone asked about them. Overall, it was a good start, and hope we continue with it.....

Note:
Navarathri or Dasara is a festival of dolls in South India. Most of the households have a tradition of decorating and arranging a collection of dolls, during this festival for 10 days. A pair of wooden dolls of bride and groom, which is passed on to the girl during her wedding, is the most important one. In households having constraints of making a full fledged arrangement, at least these two dolls will be kept along with kalasa (kalash) and goddesses are prayed. During this period, friends and relatives, especially kids will be invited and sweets and snacks distributed to them.