Monday, October 01, 2007

r2Blore is moving

Dear readers,

I have been blogging for about 11 months now. I have enjoyed good readership and wonderful participation. Thank you for your support and encouragement! I wanted to let you know that I am moving bag and baggage; nope, not me! :) but the blog. Yep, r2blore has a new home now. I am working on a site that will house all my thoughts and works. And r2Blore will now be a part of it. I plan to do a lot more writing on a variety of things. The site is still a wok in progress and it will be a while before it reaches where I want it to be. All the posts and comments have been moved manually. So, not everything from here is still there. Hope to see you all there.

For general/personal stuff, go to http://chitra-aiyer.com
For R2I specific topics please go to http://r2blore.chitra-aiyer.com

I will be having a couple of other categories too going forward. You are welcome to email me at chitra [_] aiyer [@] yahoo [.] com if you want to suggest topics, discussions etc. Looking forward to your continued readership and support.

Please point to http://chitra-aiyer.com in case you have me on your blogroll/site/blog.

Thanks,
Chitra

Friday, September 14, 2007

Ganesha Chathurthi

It is that time of the year when Ganesha Chathurthi is celebrated in full fervor in Bangalore. This time the Gowri festival (previous day of Ganesha festival) was pretty much washed out due to the rains. I am not sure if I have experienced such rains in Bangalore before. Resembled India's west coast!! A constant downpour with dark skies for the entire day.

The fun part of the week was to take the kids around to see the sights of the colorful 'Ganesha's in the temporarily setup stores, and all the flowers that were available in plenty for the festival.

The way we celebrate is to get the clay from a potter and make a small Ganesha at home; it is a fun family activity that brings a lot of joy to the kids.
My husband making the Ganesh idol
Along with the flowers, Ganesha is also worshiped with a lot of leaves. I went around with my daughter picking the select leaves. She was very happy to be doing all this, the only thing that ups my interest level in the whole affair. And when we did the pooja to the little Ganesha idol with flowers, leaves, traditional sweets and savories, ringing of the bell, the kids wearing their traditional colorful clothes etc, it was a day filled with happiness and joy. My kids are young and are thrilled to bits seeing such activities around them; the big plus for me to be doing any of this.

The atmosphere was festive in the neighborhood with the ladies hurrying around in their silk sarees, and the kids going around in groups to see the many 'Ganesha's. This is my first time celebrating the festival with hub and kids in India. And well, it was fun.
Happy Chathurthi from our home to yours!

PS: The bummer of course is that I am sick now and so is my son. It is the rains/weather change and the viral fever doing its rounds.