Growing up in Chennai, Navrathri meant half-yearly exam, light drizzles, marudhani, kunjalam, sundal and varaveena mruthu paani or Raravenu go(pa) pala!
As kids, we just had to carry a cloth bag and a kumkuma chimizh and go house to house inviting people for our kolu and critically view their kolu to come home and redo the park or zoo better than those homes.
And by the way, no one shouted with loudspeakers from rooftops reminding us to carry a cloth bag. Because we just didn't have plastic bags then.
We would, of course, visit those homes which had the best sundal twice under some pretext ..giving company to another thozhi, pretend that we forgot we visited them only to be told by one adhigaprasangi anna that I just sang vara veena 20 minutes back.
And then there was this "collective" responsibility of grading the sundals and deciding which homes should be dropped for the next day's visit depending upon the taste and texture of the sundal.
Yes, we could go on all days to any home that had kolu. There were no specific dated/timed invites like we have now, which requires a spreadsheet to calendarise the visits.
And I clearly do not remember getting any gifts from any home that we visited.
Planning for kolu meant improvised kolu steps, kolams for the day, sundal menu, which pavadai to wear, shopping for glass bangles and kunjalam.
Fast forward 30 years. Navarathri is an event. Kolu is a competition. Thematic kolus are the in thing with gourmet neivedhyam and color-coded attire for each day. Return gifts a bone of contention, with creative juices overflowing most often.
And am I the only one facing this issue ?? No one asks anyone / any child to break out into a song anymore.
Is it my singing or sign of changing times? Never mind, I don't really want to know. :)!
There have been times when I get back home and sing the song that I practiced so painstakingly to release to the world that day, but no one asks me to sing for kolu.
On those rare occasions that someone asks me to sing , I would, of course, pretend as if it just came to my mind that minute looking at the Ramar Pattabhishekam doll set in their home!
My immediate family is my dedicated audience. They are very kind and understand that primordial desire in me, a wannabe singer.
And then the return gifts... Never understood this concept. Judge me if you have to. But I just do not believe in it. Giving or receiving return gifts for Navrathri.
And the toughest part for me is the packing of sundal.. given my no plastic, compostable packaging OCD.
In our younger days, I don't remember any major packaging for sundal. Most dished out in hand and finished on the way before reaching the next kolu, or in paper pottalams, mandarai leaves.
This is my real dilemma. While I can give packed sundal in paper bags, banana leaves or any other eco-friendly alternate product, my composting OCD gives me sleepless nights thinking about what they did with the packaging. Not so much about the contents though!
Will they compost it? Will they segregate it along with wet waste? What if they bin it with mixed waste? What happens to the idea and effort of giving it in a biodegradable packing then?
My irritated family by now after hearing the unreleased, but practiced song comes with tongue-in-cheek suggestions as they know how tense I am when I give someone a biodegradable packing and keep asking them if they would actually dispose off responsibly.
- Why don't you follow them till their homes, make them empty into their container and get the bio-eco-whatever back?
- How about sending one of us the next day for door-to-door collection? ( this is accompanied by the roll-of-the eyes which is when I realize the sarcasm)
- How about asking them to bring their own takeaway dabbas, isn't that the in-thing with the plastic ban? This one is the most sensible so far!
- Why don't you gift them a dabba to carry it? This one from my Hum-suffer who just fails to get my principles of no gifts life, however, practices it in true spirit on my special days when he is expected to give.
Invariably the topic digresses to the many years that he forgot to buy me a gift, a surprise one at that for special days and Navrathri sundal packing agenda gets sidelined.
But I wake up with a clear mind that too much protein is not really a good thing for anybody and decide to make my favorite kheers and serve it to my guests.
Organic Haldi and Madurai Thazhambu kumkum are offered at our kolu from the containers. Flowers are offered too. And kheer served in Eversilver cups. ( stainless steel sounds too fashionable and doesn't sound nostalgic enough, So!)
That's a green nazi's navrathri. No takeaways. I meant tangible ones.
Zero waste navrathri -Do you want to know how to get there? Do read up an earlier post on how to's of doing a zero-waste Navrathri
Here.
Here is yet another post on Navrathri - most controversial post and I still do not know how I endured all the hate and vitriol spewed on me on social media for this post. And the best part was it got 4000 plus reads :)! So I am not complaining :)!
Read on நவராத்ரி நெருடல்கள் by clicking on the link below
http://viji-occupationmothering.blogspot.com/2016/10/blog-post_7.html
