The young daughter pours the oblation of ghee into the sacred fire of the "havan"...and her tears pour down her tender young face.

My own eyes fill as I see the sorrow of the toughest part of growing up. If Agni and Swaha do not take her love up to her father, surely those twin streams of salt and grief will do so.


( Read more... )

As I wandered around the kalyANa mantapam (festivity venue) at Chromepet, it struck me that there are so many trees that are inextricably entwined with Hindu rituals and customs...and I was lucky to be able to photograph some of them, right there. I am giving the Tamizh names and the link to the Wikipaedia entries about them, too.

One is the

( Read more... )

The

Wiki entry about our community, the Iyers says ( Read more... )

Incredible, the way technology allowed us, sitting in the porch of a house in St Louis, to watch, live, the annual ceremony for my brother...we saw the puja, the food being served on plantain leaves, several of the guests stepped over and said hello, and they were able to see Eli, too ( Read more... )

"How many people will be having dinner?" (Remember, the idlis we bought from the nearby restaurant ran out yesterday morning because eight extra people showed up ( Read more... )

We got the news late yesterday evening, and went across early this morning ( Read more... )