Karthigai

Today is Karthigai. Another festival of lights, Aren't we southies lucky? :D Well, for all who are wondering what karthigai is, Karthigai is a festival whioch we celebrate. This day denotes the occurrence of the Karthigai Nakshatram every month, as per the Tamil Calendar. Karthigai Deepam falls in the Tamil month of Karthigai when the star Krithigai is on the ascendant and usually occurs on a full moon day. This festival is also called as "the Festival of Lights". This festival is also considered as the extension of the Deepavali festival. In some houses, they double the number of lamps every day from the day of Deepavali and this way, they end up with a number of lamps on the day of Karthigai Deepam. On this day, people clean their houses and draw 'Kolams' (Rangoli) in front of the house and also place some lamps on it.

Dayan's pic, taken at a temple 



Lakku's pic of her house! :D 


(Thanks Lakku and Dayan)

To know more go here...

Also Karthigai is also a tamil equivalent of Raksha Bandhan except that there is no typing of rakhis involved. Sisters pray for the brothers and brothers make it a point to send gifts to their sisters (So all you guys, have you given gifts to your sisters?)

Amma has made vella pori, Nai appam, Payasam etc...I wanna have them but she says i can have it only after Naivediyam. Huh! Like everyone, I have always been tempted by all the delicious stuff Amma used to prepare in the event of any festival. How ever mouth watering it maybe, I was only given after the naivediyam was done. When I asked amma, why I was not given the sweets, I remember Amma had told me once that God comes and eats a portion of food when we do the naivediyam. So we cannot eat before that. I used to sincerely believe it and used to wait in anticipation for the naivediyam tog et over and would never touch the sweets before that. Its all symbolic, but its amazing how somethings are followed to the "T". Amma is busy making the yummy poris and I so wanna eat it.....but well, I will have to wait till the evening....*sigh*
Somethings don't change at all!

Happy Karthigai everybody :D Have fun eating sweets and if you aren't a southie, drop in at the nearest tam bram friend's place, am sure you will get yummy food to eat! :D

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