“O Bojja Ganapayya…. Ni bantu nenayya.., Undralla midakau, dandu pampu! Perina Neyyayya, Pesarappayya…”
“O Ganesha with a big stomach, I am your servant. Send out an expedition on to the Undraallu (great snacks loved by Ganesha and children), there is ghee that has gathered into tiny beads, there is soaked (and spiced) green gram dal… ..”
Our father taught us this lovely and funny ode to Ganesha. After all, there is nothing that children like more than tasty snacks! And that is what we used to wait for, while our minds happily wandered during the Puja. There was a rule that you didn’t get any breakfast before the Puja, maybe a little milk, if mom could slip it to you without important elders noticing.
Artist and Photographer : Satya Sarada Kandula : All Rights Reserved
Vinayaka caviti is the how we call Ganesha Habba at home. We are kannadigas by domicile and Andhras by origin. So we comfortably shift between the languages as long as no one puts pressure on us. Under pressure, I can only ramble in Indian English.
It was very important that wherever we were, we came home for Vinayaka Caviti.
The decorations were children’s work, the cooking was mom’s/grandmom’s work work, the reading was dad’s/grand-dad’s work.
It was important to wrap all the books tat you wanted to pass in in a sheets of newspaper, taped up with cellotape and put it on the pita (a wooden thing to place Ganesha on). The Pita was decorated with a small rangoli that was to be made of riceflour, but we were allowed chalk as well. Then the books, then the rice and then Vinayaka at the very top. As you can well imagine, All our books went into the paper bundle, we were certain that Ganesha would help us with all our subjects. So our Ganesha was really high up on this tower of books.
I always wanted a colourful Ganesha when I was small and deeply regretted the eco-friendly leanings of my parents to wards the plain mud Ganeshas. Finally as a compromise, we had one coloured one, that we were not allowed to immerse and we could resuse the following year and a mud one that could be immersed, in our garden in a bucket of water and then poured into the garden. So we always had 2 Ganeshas, other than a small silver one and a tiny turmeric hill/cone that was made on the spot and called pasupu Vinayakudu.
After the Dandu on the Undrallu, we were encouraged to sing songs about Ganesha that we learned at school, at home and at music class, under the strict injunction that Ganesha loves to be entertained.
The katha – akshatas at the end were very important too, for those were what protected us from Apavada and we religiously avoided looking at the moon that evening.
Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula
