Pooja

On Thursday evening we went to a Pooja for the first time ever.   A Pooja is a Hindu house blessing.  Below is how the "alter" is set out.  Everything has a meaning, and unfortunately I don't remember what it is.  They were praying to Ganesha, which is represented by the small figurine in the middle of the "alter."

This shows "R" lighting the candle, her sari was spectacular.  "M" was also dressed up in Indian dress.

The man on the left was the priest who performed the ceremony.  If you look at the "alter" you will notice there are a lot more "things" on it now.  The whole ceremony lasted around an hour.  I got to participate in it, as I was an "old" person there!!  I had to throw marigold petals along with another guy on "R" and "M's" heads.

After the ceremony they had food.  Now I DO NOT like spicy food.  I normally never eat Indian food as it is much too spicy for me.  Anyhow against my better judgement I decided to try some, after checking what everything was.  I was told to avoid the lentil soup, but everything else was good to go, or so they said!!!  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  There was this salad of very finely chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, so you would think that was safe, but no that was spicy.  There was a veggie dish, that I had a spoonful of, and felt my whole face go bright red with........very, very spicy!!

There was this green veggie thing, that looked like a chicken nugget, and again was as spicy as heck.  The naan bread was good, as was the saffron rice, the yogurt sauce thing, the spinach dish and the spring rolls......bit confused as to why there was spring rolls there?  I thought that was more of an oriental dish?

There was cake for dessert which was good and a round ball thing that was made with chick pea flour?  I wouldn't rush to eat that again, but it wasn't unpleasant.  Overall we had a super time and I met a couple of people who I hadn't seen in a while.  I bet there was around 40 people there, luckily it's a huge house so no one felt squished.

Took this photo as the sun was beginning to set on Friday night.