SFV Navaratri-2025 Round Up

Buzz is the word for ladies - as for every Navaratri - moving merrily in and around the complex in various friends-circle, attired in the day’s dress code, and seemingly on top of the world. The fragrance of jasmine flower fills the corridor and lifts.

Flower sellers Venkatesh and Mahadevi’s son Ravi had a hectic time keeping up their promises to deliver not just flowers this time, but garlands, coconuts, betal-leaves and other related items for the festivity.  In our case, for the next morning's invitation he dropped at our doorstep as late at night as 11 with a WhatsApp message, “sorry for the delay but I kept my promise.” So nice of him.

While each gathering will have its own interesting stories and anecdotes to share, mine would be confined to those with which the lady of the house has been busy with. 

By intent or otherwise the invitations did not clash or overlap. Only on one occasion, the ladies had to recite Lalitha Sahasranamam back to back. Otherwise, if it was Lalitha Sahasranamam at one place, it was Aigiri Nandini at the other, or Devi Mahatmyam in the third house. 

“Uncle, how do you know so well? You might ask. Who do you think maintained Aunty’s diary?

Aside the reasonably good number of invitations each day for Thamboolam, there were a couple of chanting sessions that lasted 1-1-2 hours to 3 hours. In-house visits included for chanting Devi Mahatmyam (also known as Durga Saptashati) for nearly three hours in one house; 1-1/2 hours of condensed version of Narayaneeyam in another house; and Lalitha Sahasranamam and Aigiri Nandini, and exchange of Thambulam in several other houses. For the long sessions, the hosts took good care of the guests with hot badam milk or dry fruits in between, to help them re-align their vocal cords.

There was a breakthrough this year in that there was an invitation from outside. The family of Mrs Anupama Hosakere of the Mandala Cultural Centre (a sprawling 7-acre area located between Thalaghattapura and Silk Institute metro stations) arranges every Navaratri a breathtaking display of over 10 000 (yes, ten thousand) dolls from the British-India days, in different themes – Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc. 

Mrs Anupama is Padma Shri as well as a Sangeet Natak Academy award winner for puppetry. She had invited our Narayaneeyam group (courtesy Aruna and Prasad of 2094) to recite selected chapters from Narayaneeyam. 

A contingent of 20 to 30 or so ladies with the selected chapters duly page-marked, stuffed the heavy Narayaneeyam book in their bags. Equal to the occasion (pre-arranged by Aruna), a convoy of six or seven cars, with spouses of some at the wheels accommodated the designated ladies in their cars to follow Satya Prasad who led them from the front. It was a sight to watch the cars moving lined up near Gate 4 and moving in unison at equal distance – in the beginning, to be precise. Thereafter might was right. Every lady was able to keep up to her commitments both in attendance and quality of rendering. If the proof of pudding is in the eating, then the host’s invitation to the group to render every year hereafter, should stand testimony to group’s genuine efforts. (When the group began rendering Kesha Pasha Drudha Pinchikavithathi… - the Rasakreeda – Anupama requested them to pause for a while. Her younger daughter, an accomplished dancer, enacted the scene to the enjoyment of all).

This piece will be incomplete without a mention of  SFV’s own grand Durga Devi Puja celebrations in Club House on Saturday evening. It was a class apart. Suffice it to quote a lady in her message to the organizers, “it was just Pure Bliss to be there, chant and witness the beautiful pujas…feel so blessed.” Not just you, Ma’am all of us. Kudos organizers. 

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Navaratri for Menfolk

Maybe I should not make a general statement. It may differ from person to person.  For me Navaratri is the period when I am at the receiving end of instructions day in and day out. Here’s just a day shared. 

‘I say,’ the lady of the house calls me in a raised voice from kitchen to be heard in the Master bedroom where I was reading newspaper. ‘I have placed an order for over a dozen items with Amazon; each is arriving at different times. So be sure to stay home. But don’t make that an excuse to skip your walk. Do it in the corridor. Got it?’  “Yes Ma’am - with right foot first or left?” 

‘When our domestic help comes,’ she resumes after a pause, “ask her to cut pumpkin; tell her it is for sambar – not in too small sizes as she did last time; then beans, for curry and a tomato or two for rasam. “One, or Two? be specific” I asserted, unwilling to accept unclear orders - and be blamed later. “Okay, just one if it is a big tomato, otherwise two.”  Not enlightened any better, but no point in rubbing it in. “If she has time,” she continues, “ask her to peel pomegranate.’ 

‘You can jot them down the items if you like. You have knack of missing some. The other day you forgot to tell her to peel sambar-onion, consequently we had to make-do with rasam the next morning,” she quipped not let go any opportunity unavailed.

“Ah, also make sure she dusts sofas, furniture, windows and doors. You know I have invited guests for haldi-kum kum for tomorrow evening.  You recall when we moved in, we enjoyed a reputation for keeping our house spic and span. We would rather live up to that, at least when we know in advance someone is visiting.”  

“I just remembered the coconut bulk-supplier will come to collect money. Tell him he has billed Rs 5 more per piece than what he quoted,” she said.  “On second thought,” wisdom dawned on her, “I wish you don’t take it up. Just pay his bill. After all, only last week we decided not to bargain with small-time operators.”

‘Ah, by the way,’ she hurried back as she was closing the door for her first visit, “I forgot to invite Ms A for haldi kum kum. Please do a copy-paste and send an invite to her.’ “Which A? There are two,’ I quipped. ‘The fairer one,’ she replied. “I have seen only one of them; so, I don’t know who is fair and who is fairer,” I insisted. “OK I will do it myself. No point in arguing with you.” she closed the door that had a tinge of bang.

“There are a few new OTT releases,” I just managed to reach her before she actually closed the door.  You will be away for three hours at a stretch, so shall I watch some?” I asked.  “Why on earth?” she quipped.  “We will watch them together, don’t you feel? You can now watch news and Youtube and get a clearer picture of GST, Vote Chori, Caste Census, the $ 100,000 fee for H1B visas,” she passed the verdict before closing the door. 

Half-way to closing the door, she opened it again. “The gas stove is on; I have kept cooker. When it whistles twice, just put it on sim for a while and then switch it off. ‘I say, did you hear me?’ She repeated. ‘Yes, Ma’am.’  ‘Then why didn’t you nod so that I know it has registered,’ she persisted. ‘Ok, hereafter I will give you in writing, Ma’am.’

Just before she closed the door in full finally, I interrupted. “How about going out on a vacation for next Navaratri? I asked. “You don’t mean it,” she quipped with a stare that conveyed – don’t ever dare suggest being away from SFV during Navaratri.

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Bedside Manners (Intentions Unquestioned)

You might be a person with good habits – regular morning and evening walks, moderate eating habits, exercises to an extent, and the like.  Regardless, sometimes problems that grow within begin surfacing. I felt pain on my right knee two months ago. 

“Over 50% of the cartilage and menisci have worn out,” said the Orthopedician, looking at the X-ray report. I have heard ‘cartilage’ earlier, but not the other one. When communicating with patients, most doctors forget they are talking to commoners, not their peers.  

“Not to worry, many in your age group often lose 70%,” he reassures. How does that help me, I wonder. 

News spreads like wildfire – and faster in SFV. Well-wishers begin rushing in saying, long time no see. No issue, most welcome. But, not with Ratnadeep’s khakhi envelope of apples, oranges or pears. 

Some visitors have a knack of taking over the conversation even before you had completed two sentences explaining your problem. “Oh, this is nothing. My……..,” and embark on an trip narrating encounters of their friends and relatives. 

Yet another who has probably undergone the ritual, asks me to confine myself to just three workouts, and begins to demonstrate them. Alas, none of these finds a place in my physiotherapist’s list. “One red capsule in the morning and one white tablet at night, and I was fine in ten days,” he recapitulates, with no clue to what pharmaceutical substances they contain.  I remembered my WHO days. We had a book on good prescribing practices. It explains how the symptoms may be the same in different cases, but the medicines differed in each case. If my memory serves me right, the young lady in her twenties had monthly-cycle problem, for the taxi driver in his 30s it was an onset of tuberculosis, for the lady in her early 50s it had to do with menopause, and the senior citizen had discontinued his antibiotic course halfway and there was a relapse. 

“I say, just undergo an intense Ayurveda massage treatment. You will be fine,” suggests another on a visit from Kerala. Point well taken, but I would prefer to try out my course of treatment, I told myself. To him, I just nodded with a smile.

This visitor, my close friend, had two motives. One to enquire about my health, and the other, and the more important one, to persuade me to go on an outstation trip together, which we have not done for quite some time. Not sure he has sold the idea to me, he turned to my wife to convince her. “I tell you Sundaram has no problem whatsoever. He just needs a change. Let’s all go to Coimbatore. En route I will hold him at stopovers to restaurants. We will stay for a couple of days, and you two can stay with his sisters and brother for a few days more and have a real change.” We have agreed in principle. 

Pending that, I have sworn to take a walk, both in the morning and evening, in the Pine-Maple-Cedar-Ebony park area when it is more frequented, partly to let my friends see me in one piece, but more importantly to pre-empt their visits with apples and oranges - and make me feel more sick than I am.

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