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.

"But they are squishing my girls"................

On Thursday we are going to a Pooja.  Now for those of you not in the know, a Pooja is a house blessing for people of the Hindu/Sikh persuasion.  Our "adopted daughter and son-in-law" are Indian and they are moving into their first house and have decided to have a Pooja.

Now as you may or may not have guessed we are not Indian, so I figured that I would try and blend in a bit more with the other Indian people there and buy an Indian outfit.  So while I was in the city on Tuesday I called in at a couple of Indian clothing stores.  Must say they were a little surprised to see a middle aged white woman with a British accent asking for a tunic, but they were ever so nice and helpful.

In the last store I went into they picked out some tunic tops but all but one were too tight and were squishing the girls (bosoms).  So we decided I would try on the longer tunics and pants sets.  They picked out the largest size they had and they thought it looked wonderful.  However all I kept saying to them, "they are squishing my girls."  They kept saying that's the way they wear them and they were supposed to be clinging to your figure.  Now that's all well and good when you don't have any wobbly bits, but when you have wobbly bits you really don't want things clinging to you.  They did suggest a sari, but I did ask them how on earth me and dh were supposed to tie it/put it on?  I suppose that could be a whole new post in itself; me and dh trying to figure out how to put on a sari!!!

Anyhow, I ended up buying this tunic top which at least I can wear again for another occasion.  If I am ever invited to a fancy dancy Indian function I will go out and buy a sari and make sure I put it on when Rupa is there to help me.

So the reason I was in the city was to go to the dentist for my six monthly cleaning.  The gist of the situation is that there is a problem with the root canal that he just did.  So I am on antibiotics and have to go back in two weeks to see how my mouth is feeling {{{SIGH}}}  I have no idea what is going on, but I know that my poor mouth is still aching.

I was out all day on Tuesday and was pooped by the time I finally got home, but at least I got a number of errands completed while I was down there.

I plan on having an industrious day around the house on Wednesday, wish me luck!!