Avani Avittam 2009

This year's avani avittam was truly a strange one. And, trust me, I've seen some real strange avani avittams so far. I've changed my poonal at strange places. Hell, I've even been the makeshift vadhyar, when I was in gradschool, by virtue of being in possession of a spare veshti and new poonals (Smartha variety) and a familiarity with the routine that was good enough to con my friends into believing in my non-existent ritualistic abilities. When it comes to the business of changing poonals, the buck stops with me.

So, what made AA'09 strange? Was it an exotic location? A la 2001 in the balcony of our apartment in Tempe, AZ with 2 guys in line, waiting to avail my services? Or 2005 in Shirakawa, Japan, in my small (8'x8') hotel room facing distant mountains? Or, perhaps, 2006 at Hotel Holiday Inn Express, Grenoble, with a great view and a plastic cup doubling up as the pancha paathram? No. This time, it was right at home, in the comfort of our living room.

At least, was it an adventurous one? Like in 2004 where I turned up, in shorts, taking time off from an early morning work assignment, for the first morning session in an ante-room in Komala Vilas, Sunnyvale, CA and had to scramble, at the last moment, for a veshti to conform to the dress code? (I managed a new one and that, by the way, is a separate post in itself) No, it was a much sedate one, lacking the drama or adventure that have spiced up previous editions.

So, you are wondering, what made this one strange. Well, this was the first all-male avani avittam in our household. But, avani avittam, amidst all the female oriented festivals where the men folks are relegated to being a side act or even a stagehand, is indeed a male celebration - the religious equivalent of the guys day out, you might argue. The one occasion on the Hindu calendar where the focus is on the man and not the woman. Well think again. It is the mother, or the wife, as the case may be, that prepares the site with the kolam, pulls out the pattu veshtis from the deeper recesses of the cup board, locates the spare sets of pancha pathrams, prepares the prasadam and finally puts up, at least in our case, with all the strutting around and attention seeking indulgences of the guys wanting to make the most of this one day. There is an undercurrent of feminity throughout the whole affair and that makes it complete.

This time around, With amma in a different world, and the wife away in a different city, it was an avani avittam minus the scent of the women - an ingredient without which avani avittam is as complete as vathakuzhambu without vellam. And with the brother away in a different country, it was left to the two of us - self and father, to go about the tasks before plugging into the regular routine a little behind schedule.

This year, we could not get a hold of "the sheet" in its physical form, with this year's sankalpam - usually delivered by the family vadhyar. Instead we had to rely on a soft copy of the same that was forwarded by email. And that meant Mr. Dell Latitude, was indeed the vadhyar, and at 15" across, a particularly lean one. The laptop was positioned between the two of us, facing us and the upakarma duly got underway.

It needs to be mentioned here that typically men do little else besides what is asked of them by the scriptures. But that day, since the two of us were racing against the clock to run some errands, and since our cook, a lady, perhaps helping with her husband's upakarma, wasn't in that day, we were forced to multitask. We decided to finish cooking, in parallel, so that we will be left with a few more precious minutes. In other words, we were trying to forge a win-win situation that didn't exist. What ensued was a juggling act of culinary and religious tasks with me scurrying back and forth between the hall and the kitchen in response to a sound or smell from the kitchen.

We got started only for the cooker to sound a third time. By the time we got around to yagnyopaveetha dhaaranam, the preliminary concoction for the rasam was not smelling the way it should and required my immediate attention. Kanda rishi tharpanam was done with one eye on the beans in the frying pan that threatened to demonstrate its inflammable properties. Amidst all the chaos happening around, the vadhyar, I mean the laptop, which could not be plugged in because of our location, went into hibernation twice, prompting violent scrubs on the mouse pad or frantic pounding of the space key to resuscitate it and finally having to log in again.

They say, all's well that ends well. We managed to complete, to the best extent possible, the religious requirements and also fixed ourselves a pretty decent meal along the way. The laptop was not exactly dry and had a few sesame seeds stuck beneath the keys, but hey, who is perfect?

But there were lessons in there all the same that can help us come 2010:

1. Give the lady of the house the Aung San Suu Kyi treatment a good week before avani avittam day. I meant only the house arrest.

2. Make sure that preparing a meal isn't on the agenda.

3. And if you plan to have an e-avani avittam, plug in the computer to a power source. It helps.

I can observe the above rules. If I don't, I'll blog on this topic in a year from now.