Upanayanam preparations of our Eldest Son

SHREE GURUBHYO NAMAHA!!!! 

In this post am sharing about some prior preparations we did for organising punal function and also the memories of the upanayanam function of our Eldest son Sukarman.

🌹 “UPANAYANA”🌹 IS A SANSKRIT WORD MEANING ‘MOVING CLOSER ‘, TO THE KNOWLEDGE, TO THE GURU , TO THE DIVINE.

🌹UPNAYANAM, 🌹HELPS IN PURIFYING THE PAST. IT COMPRISES OF GAYATRI DEEKSHA, WHICH OPENS THE CHANNELS OF BLESSINGS OF GODDESS GAYATRI, WHO HOLDS THE VEDAS OR ENTIRE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS CREATION. THE CEREMONY IS COMPLETE WITH WEARING OF THE “YAGNOPAVITA” OR “SACRED THREAD” ON THE BODY. THIS MARKS A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE SADHAK, HELPING TO CREATE BALANCE IN THE WORLDLY AND SPIRITUAL LIFE.

                                                                     

First thing that we started is to decide date for the function with elder's blessings date was fixed on february 4th 2021. We had two months time to get things ready as we decided date during december month. Then we got invitation format from sastrigal and gave invitations for print. 

In next two days we got our invitations ready. My son designed english version of invitation for sending it through watsapp. First we prayed to our Family God and sent invitation copy to native and Kanchi periyava and got blessings from them.

Our next step is to collect address of our relatives to whom we need to send invitation and sent them through registered post as we were not able to go in person to invite all. Then as the invitation reached one by one we called them and invited. Special thanks to everyone for making this function a grand success.

Some prior arrangements that we did before punal.

• We booked our apartment party hall for the function
• Rooms and separate houses for guest to stay(thanks to owners who gave us the home to use for our guests)
• catering agent to prepare special food for all our guests
• photo and video to capture those lovely moments
• Hall decorations and garlands and vazhai maram for the function
• We didn't hire person for melam and nadhaswaram instead we used our music system to play songs for the occassion.
• cleaning persons to clean home and party hall.

Note: On this occasion i would like to thank each and every person who worked hard for the function.  Many thanks to our neighbor for giving their Ammi kal for the function. Also whenever we are in need of things, for arranging things and organising many helped us (parents, my sisters and his brothers) on time and it mattered a lot for us. 

***My grandmother and My DH grandmother was present for the function to bless their GREAT GRANDSON. Also My DH Periappa-Periamma & My Chithi-Chitappa also graced the occasion.

Things needed for sumangali prarthanai:-

The below list are the things needed apart from the basic things like mustard,jeera,pepper,toordhal, tamarind,ghee,oil etc. that is there in our home. As this is kalyanam pondugal we can make use of the things in our home. Otherwise all items need to be new one. 

Manjal,kumkum,chandan,limestone,betel leaves, supari,flower,fruits.

Jaggery-2kg,Urud dhal -1kg

Channa dhal-1/4kg ,coconut - 4 no's

beans - 1kg, Raw banana- 4 big or 5 small

brinjal- 1/2kg, lemon- 3 ,cucumber- 1 big

coriander leaves - 1 bunch , Raw mango-1 number

rava- 1/2kg , atta - 1/2 kg

white pumpkin - 1, ladies finger- 1/2 kg

elephant yam - 1/2 kg , coconut oil

rice-3kg , banana leaves, cashews.

This the menu we prepared for the sumangali prarthanai.(for 15 persons)

• payasam,thayir pachadi,sweet pachadi
• Moongdhal and broken channa dhal gosumalli
• raw banana and beans curry
• thanikuttu
• senai ,brinjal kuttu and white pumpkin kuttu
• lemon rice, raw mango pickle, coriander thuvaiyal
• channa pittlai
• rasam,more kulambu, sojji appam
• vadai, paruppu,rice
• NEER moor, PANAGAM, SUKKU VELLAM

We need to make nalangu manjal and must keep vessel of water near saree.

**NEED TO MAKE EZHAI KOLAM for the function. we soaked channa dhal previous night and curd-2 and a half litre was made ready previous day. Rest all prepared morning.

03-02-2021

We performed Sumangali prarthanai and Got blessings of all ancestor women of our family. So we woke up early morning and did pooja with nine yards saree to be kept for that days pooja along with oil and shikkai powder to be given to all pondugals who were invited for the function. Later we soaked Navadhanyam for paligai as instructed by vathiyar.

*** Me,My mother,father ,DH and vadu did prayer that this function should happen with almighty and ancestoral blessings.

****Later i dipped nine yards saree in water and put it for dry early in the morning.(4AM). Then i put ezhai kolam for God and outside our home. Then started arranging for that days pooja.

****I Invited 4 pondugal + 1 podavai kalam prior to function and made arrangements. Later got opportunity to include two more pondugals for the same.(Thanks to my mom and gowri akka for giving their hands on this).

Then all pondugals were served food and given tamboolam with mattai thengai and freshly prepared maruthani. Then everyone of us(including eldest family members) got blessings from them.Then we served food for kids and all men of our home.(This is the only day women were served food before men)

Later we all got ready for the evening function poorvangam.

We all dressed up and got ready for the function. Function started by getting blessings from elders. Then we invited all our family women for sowing palligai(blessed moment as we got exactly 9 sumangalis for doing that), Later vadu was taken for snanam. After that He wore new dhothi ,My Father in law Put Garland for vadu and Yellow kappu was tied on his hand.

That days function went on well and ended with AARTHI.

Note: We need to pick fresh maavilai(by kalyan anna),cup of milk(by Bala anna), two cups of rice and sand(by sundar) for sowing paligai and one garland for vadu and flowers for all.As we are doing poorvangam previous day ;vadu will be bathed on that day too; so we need towel and extra dhoti for that evening too.

04 February 2021

Naandhi was performed on early morning remembering all our ancestor Men of our family. Then Agni was lighted by me and my mother.Then sacred thread was put for my son. After some poojas vadu was taken for kumara bhojanam(Pappa athai). 

Next is Sawara Kalyanam for the vadu. Asking My son's permission his front part of hair shaved and the dhothi the boy is wearing is given to the barber. Later my son was bathed and dressed up in new clothes. Kajal is kept by his aunt(Rama Akka) and he is carried on shoulder by his periappa(Kumar Athimber). As i dont have a brother my athimber carried him on his shoulders. 

Then my son did pada puja for his father and later he was made to stand on ammi stone and thanga poonal and velli punal was put on his shoulder. Later My son sat on his father's lap and we all were covered with pattu veshti and Gayathri mantra upadesham was given. Got blessings from all elder's of our family.

My son said abhivadhanam to me and got my blessings. This is the only one time vadu says abhivadhanam to only woman that is his mother. So Blessed moment.Then he got bhikshadhanam from me and offered the rice to me.(next day we should make any sweet using that rice),After that my mother put bhiksharisi, then Other Family women members also offered bhiksharisi for vadu and finally the function ended with aarthi and everyone was given tamboolam along with murukku and laddu and a memorable return gift.

 Note:

*** My Sister Lakshmi  and athimber for giving hands, in making Packets of laddu and murukku for distributing to our guests.

*** My younger sister Suba and family for their special wishes and gifts though they were not able to join us the function. 

****Special thanks to Gowri for suggesting kadukkan idea and that was the highlight of the function as kids looked cute wearing it.

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**** We need curd, rice, garlands, flowers, ammi, thanga poonal, velli poonal,pancha patram, bhiksha rice, plate, seer bakshanam, parupputhengai, dresses.Also discuss with sastrigal to make arrangements of missed items.

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Special thanks to catering person for making quality food for our guests.Photographer and Video grapher(all our guests admired his smily approach attitude), for capturing memorable moments. 

After the function is over we immediately came to our home and took aarthi and invited vadu inside our home as it would be Ashtami in the afternoon of that day. 

In this moment i take immense pleasure to thank each and everyone who attended this function  and all those who wished  through phone and blessed us for making this function a grand success.Also this write up is not to show case what we did but wanted to keep this day's happenings as a everlasting memory in our hearts.

My younger son started serving food volunteerly to guests.

The fifth day palligai looked like this

Return Gifts:-

This was indeed specially Made vilakku and it was ordered by my DH from Nachiyar kovil Kumbakkonam. It is a Brass OM Vilakku Uniquely made for our guests. 

Special Song:- 

My father sang a song for swara kalyanam that is Enna punniyam seydheno sadhguru natha song. Inspired by the song tune i got an instant song on my mind for my son and sang it for final aarthi.

Also i would like to convey apology to all our function attendees if at all any thing we missed out in honoring them in anyways and special thanks to everyone once again for making this function a grand success as i have mentioned names of only few, doesn't really mean that others are left out, it is because of everyone's blessings we were able to do this function in a grand manner.

Finally, The real success lies in the hands of my son by  following  our dharma in the path of our ancestors.

वेदोऽखिलो धर्ममूलं स्मृतिशीले च तद्विदाम् ।

आचारश्चैव साधूनामात्मनस्तुष्टिरेव च ॥ ६ ॥

vedo'khilo dharmamūlaṃ smṛtiśīle ca tadvidām |

ācāraścaiva sādhūnāmātmanastuṣṭireva ca || 6 ||

The entire Veda is the root-source of Dharma; also the Conscientious Recollection of righteous persons versed in the Veda, the Practice of Good (and learned) Men, and their self-satisfaction.

tarko 'pratishthah srutayo vibhinna

nasav rishir yasya matam na bhinnam

dharmasya tattvam nihitam guhayam

mahajano yena gatah sa panthah

By arguing we will get nothing. There is no lAbham (लाभ:) . There might be subtle differences between vedam (वेदं) and rishiis’ vAkyams (ऋषीणांवायं) . So, for observing sadAcAram (सदाचार:), we should follow the practices of our family traditions or kulAchAram as done by our elders.

International Relocation during COVID (from UAE)

 This is an important and incomparable Global Relocation from UAE for our family.

I wanted to share this post earlier once we reached INDIA as we came here during June30th 2020.

When International travel tickets were just opened after LOCKDOWN period. 

WE planned for relocating to india once school academic year gets over. As the last working day was 27th june 2020. But we were worried a lot about our travel. Like how to get tickets and travel safely with kids in this pandemic situation. We didn't do much plans as we didn't know exact travel dates. 

Everything that happened in our life is only a miracle it all happened because of Gods abundance blessings on our family and our elders prayers. As everyone from our family were more concerned about our travel.

No one will believe our story as it all happened in a matter of a day. Yes we relocated from UAE in a day planning as we got our tickets on june29th morning 10.30 with travel date june30.

We registered with indian embassy as we wanted to relocate after exams over. But we got no updates on travel dates. So we couldnot concretely wind off everything from Gas connection to Home furnitures selling.

June 29th

Actually after making breakfast for the day i went to Air India office at khalidiya.It was located at walkable distance from our home. We didnt step out of our apartment since march month. I stepped out of our home for checking tickets with air india office so that we can plan ahead to get ready for our journey.

I reached the agency there was heavy queue especially men's queue waiting outside ticketing office.As there was separate queue for women i happened to get my token. In few min the queue control was taken by police as there was heavy rush. I was called inside and i was happy that i got chance to enquire about our travel dates amidst of this heavy rush. this was my token picture

Once i entered they got our passports and checked about our registration details with embasssy. It took time for them to check so i was asked to wait outside. But police asked me to leave place to avoid women waiting for long time. So they told me they will call me if any updates. so i returned to my home. Suddenly i got a call from agency to collect our tickets for next day to trichy. I was shocked to hear this it was already 10.30 how can we start to india tomorrow. 

They told us to come immediately and in no matter of time we had to decide what next has to be done. That too most important and crucial decision. I went to ticket office to collect our tickets. I could not control my tears while walking on road i felt helpless and very tired. Meanwhile my DH called everyone from Gas connection, water connection, eb connection, phone and internet disconnection and home rental agreement cancellation and so on. 

I still remember that days happenings after these many days. We also had to give away all our furnitures. From everywhere we got pressured. No one was believing our short time plan of relocating that to the very nextday. Somehow all things happened. Packing things was one of the hectic things. 

That day i understood that there is no use of these many things in our life. We hardly use everything. Apart from our needs. From kids books, notebooks,old dresses, cooking utensils, and so on.  WE packed things vigorously we were not able to waste a single minute. 

Also we had our younger sons keyboard as that will not be allowed in hand luggage,  we had to give that to my sons music institute that evening. Me and my kids went to institute for giving keyboard and returned home with a long walk on our favourite road. We were all worn out fully. We had to eat outside in a restaurant near our home that night. We got a person to shift our furnitures. As we had to handover our home empty we had to compromise with everything that happens around us. 

Only one desire we had was our safe travel other than that we cant think of any other. AS lockdown period was over and every thing started to function normally with safety protocols in abudhabi we were able to get done all works easily. 

Our flight was scheduled for 6:00 pm next day. so we have to be in airport atleast 6 hours before as we had to do our test in airport. 

So we had our dinner and planned to sleep we could not sleep properly that night. By 12:00 am some authorities came for taking covid test we told them we going to india today but still they insisted to take the test as they doing it area wise. They took our emirates id and after some time two people came in PPE suit came for taking swab test. 

We all took the test. My younger son was in deep sleep and we had to wake him up for the test. IN middle of sleep he also underwent swab test. Later we got our id's.

The next day morning my husband had to go for rental home documents and key handover. We cleaned our flat for hand over. We ate our lunch and bid good bye to our home and started to airport at 12:30.

We reached airport by 1:15. Before entering we had to go for a Rapid covid test in abudhabi airport. 

Thankfully we all got negative as we didn't travel anywhere for past 3 months.

Then we checked in airport. Followed social distancing protocol we could see markings on floor and on seats in waiting areas. Below are few pic in airport.In this tough situation we clicked this to mark our historical moments.

WE boarded the flight by 5:23

We all were wearing mask,gloves, and face shield till end of our journey. All middle seat passengers were given PPE kit. My dh got a ppe kit to wear.Other than hand bags and laptop bags all other bags were put in checked in luggage. Once we all were inside the plane. We could see many passengers like us and also most of them were pregnant women who were travelling back to india in this flight with us.

We sat in our place quitely. We found it hard to sit without touching any places. As we were all tired kids slept in flight. We kept washing our hands if we accidentally touch any place. We were given water bottles in the plane and small pack of  food was given. We had our own water bottle. So we didn't eat or drink in plane

Mainly we didnt use rest rooms during our travel. 

Almost by 11:30 our flight landed in trichy airport. All our luggages were sanitised before it was put in conveyer belt. We collected our luggage. We gave the filled form in airport and did covid test in the airport before exiting.

We got stamped on our hands. Later we went to periyar maniammai university at vallam. There we requested for home quarantine. They didnot agree with our request after repeated request we got permission for home quarantine.

This travel indeed was a memorable trip as we relocated from abudhabi with kids in Covid 19 period.