Varalakshmi Pooja 2009

The pooja always falls on a friday and the occasion starts on thursday evening. Each family has its own way of celebrating or worshipping the Goddess. Some draw the face of Goddess Lakshmi as a rangoli, some draw a face on a coconut with tumeric and kumkum and create a kalasham for the body. Some have a face made out in silver and thats us. On thursday we got to dress up the Goddess and welcome her home. The dressing up became a tricky experience this time in Haifa. Usually, we use a coconut against which the face is supported and use a brass utensil, called the sombu for the lower body and adorn her with some silk cloth and jewels. But, as mentioned in my prevoius post, i arrived here with the silver face alone. Made alternate arrangements for the sombu and used an orange in place of the coconut.

On thursday evening we are to dress her up and formally welcome her home.

The prashad for the evening must be a yellow rice! It slowly got changed into Venpongal over the years. Little A always looks forward to a sweet when i mention the word Prashad. He thinks only God can make sweets and any prashad is "God given". So i made a little Sharkarai Pongal, true to its name i used brown sugar due to unavailability of jaggery. In his usual way, he hen picks all the cashews tastes it and thanks God and also assures him its tasty! This time he made it a point to say it in hebrew - "thayim" meaning tasty.

On friday, the tradition goes like making prasadams the whole of the morning, followed by the pooja at the end of which a yellow thread - the saradu is tied onto our right hand wrist. A friend of mine asked if its a simple pooja or a hard one. I think it all depends on how much we are capable of doing given the time and the situations and surroundings and most of all patience. The usual prasadams are Mothakam, vada, payasam, idli and appam. Dont ask me why idli of all things. And more over i'm not supposed to eat curd or buttermilk the whole of friday. Yet again, i do not know why! For me more than anything, the region dictated the way i did the pooja. As they say live like a roman in Rome, i prayed like an Israeli in Israel, with candles and oranges. When the Jews observed Shabbath from Friday afternoon, we observed varalakshmi vratham! Talking about prasadams, i got to make vada,payasam and idli. Performed the pooja in my own possible way with some sloka chanting and my MIL had sent me a scanned copy of how to perform the pooja. It was all in tamil! With my "ezuthu kootal" knowledge of tamil managed to read through it. For people who want to do it the simple way, just chant the Lakshmi Ashtothram . Just like all the poojas start by worshipping the elephant god, Ganesha, this pooja too starts of by worshipping him.

A new Ganesha, a cone like structure is made out of turmeric and the akshadai and flowers are offered to him as we chant some slokas and mantras. The same is offered to Goddess Lakshmi as we chant mantras on her name (the ashtotram).

I drew a Soundarya Lahari rangoli (this deserves a separate post) and placed flowers on it as i chanted the ashtotram. Did i mention that i finally bought a bouquet if roses and lilly and managed the hibiscus and arali (its the tamil name) from a nearby park.

All set and done, I dont think the Goddess ever dictated means of worshipping her. I truly beleive only the interest involved and devotion and dedication matters. The pooja doesn't end here for me. Today evening, i'm supposed to take an arathi for the Goddess, welcome home some sumangalis (married women) and offer them thambulams. Tomorrow evening or the day after i.e on sunday morning i'm supposed to leave the Goddess to rest in a rice barrel.

Hmm, let me go see how i can go about doing these now.

Almost forgot to mention, the person performing the pooja is supopsed to wear the nine yards, madisaar, and yay! yay! i did it!