Tamil New Year day and Vishu

t was during morning  walk I met Mr. Krishnan a regular walking mate and wished him happy new year. It required clarification as for Tamilians   new year day was  today and for Palghat People Vishu falls tomorrow. In order to cover both  festivals  on a single day, we had our vishukkani  today itself  and decided celebrating both today.

While he mentioned his relatives n Palghat like Payyannur, Ayyakkad, Perinkulam, Koduvayur, Nemmara,etc we came to commonness of  Kavuu that is Manappallikkavu. I told him that I belong to Thondikulam but hardly stayed in Palghat as I lived in Trichur for 13 years and later in Bangalore,etc.I was recollecting my colleagues in Bangalore who originally hailed from Thondikulam like Anantharaman,Dhandayuthapani and Seshadri.Incidentally none of us meet each other after retirement. Two of them were related to my wife and thus not much acquainted with me and the third person belonged to Delhi and was a colleague in Inspection and Audit Dept. During my Bank service of six years in Coimbatore wife used to go for Nurani/Thondikulam sasthapreethi  every year and I couldn’t go .She used to say many people enquired about me through my mother who was from Nurani. She used to explain about the various Paayasams tasted ,etc.

It is found we have many near relatives in Nurani  ,Thondikulam,Tharakkad,Thathamangalam,Chittoor,Vadakkancherry, Kalpathi,etc and many other places in Palghat.

I mention my native place as Palghat but feel unhappy being away from my native place.

Being  a senior citizen I don’t say an old man many items are restricted to be eaten .In the morning during course of walk we worship or do sevai at Perumal koil,pray God Pillayar,another Ganesha and Nagathammal and others. Since she takes bath early morning she goes inside all the said temples and I worship from outside and I return home and take bath later, Today in one of the Ganesha temples she got Kesari and Sweet Bhoondi In dhonnai as prasadam .I had to consume one of them as she doesn’t take those . Later at home I could get heavier breakfast after performing Ammavasai  tharpanam.While taking lunch took a little rice,Sakkara Pongal,and a little aviyal and a vadai .She has made aviyal,mango koottan,Rasam,Some paanagam,vadai, Paayasam, etc I couldn’t take all these as usual . That is the situation.

Nowadays festivals need to be celebrated without much eating things since there are not many persons at home. Of course a portion she distributed to neighbors and they too reciprocate . In order to reduce intake in quantity of carbohydrate and fructose and sodium chloride , saturated fat,etc we combined both festivals to a single day .