A Good Day to Celebrate

Traditional marigold decorations at the pooja ceremony

Marigold on tuberose strings

Red Rose petals in freshwater earthen bowl….. emitting a sweet aroma into the surroundings…

A Birthday (janmadinotsavam) in traditional Indian context is the day corresponding to the lunar or solar month of the birth with the same asterism ( asterism is a pattern of stars recognized on Earth’s night sky) as the day of the birth….so it may actually not be the same day every year as per the Christian calender!

In the traditional Indian manner, birthday celebrations have an early start to the day with a purifying bath and donning new clothes. A traditional pooja (prayer ceremony) is held and you seek blessings from the almighty as well as elders of the family. All family and friends gather to shower good wishes on you. Giving of Daan (gifts) of food, clothes, money etc.) to the needy and poor is done. A feast with Indian delicacies, sweetmeats and especially Kheer , is held after the ceremonies. Oh! And you do get gifts…incase you were wondering! My parents always gifted me books and I have a collection of lovely illustrated ones from my younger years…

But this traditional manner of celebration seems to be on the wane with truncated availability of time, nuclear families and materialistic attitude to life. Adopting the modern way of partying and having a blast instead…..(self guilty as charged…) seems, sadly, more convenient…

P.S. The shots above were taken at a recent birthday party hosted by a friend for her daughter’s first birthday. I couldn’t resist carrying out my photography experiments 😀 …..It was a good blend of traditional ceremony followed by mingling and partying…and there was Kheer as well as cake!

ZeroToHero has reached day 19 and I’ve been experimenting with the galleries format these past few days…there are so many interesting ways you can set up your gallery….Here’s one I haven’t tried before. Also this is my take on today’s Daily Prompt.