Panfusine

The New Year's here and that of course means that the festive finale of the previous year comes to a grinding halt. The Christmas tree is cleared of its ornaments, the ornaments are wrapped up, and stashed back into the big storage boxes, and said storage boxes are then dragged back down to the basement to hibernate until next December. In most households this definitely means a lull in the happy mood that prevails, the sinking feeling of nothing to celebrate until the weather warms up, and of course, the snowstorms and  bitter cold weather that inevitably marks February. And no, a corporate invented festival like Valentine's day does not count. In Indian homes, we just get ready to celebrate the next celestial event that makes its turn, In this case, the return of the sun to the northern Hemisphere, known as 'Uttarayan' in Sanskrit. every state and community has its own way of celebrating the impending arrival of spring / hot weather (for all practical purpo...

With the advent of the New year as per the Gregorian calendar, comes the first wave of festivals celebrated throughout India (We Indians simply LOVE to get the day off, celebrating festivals, religious as well as social, Heck, when no religious conforming to our personal faith is in sight, We'll happily participate in other festivals from other religions and I'm not joking). Christmas morning at home would be heralded by my dad playing 'Mary's Boy child' & Silent Night (the only Christmas related songs we had on a cassette tape at home). Fifteen days into the year arrives the first Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving known in Tamil Nadu as 'Pongal' ( Literally translated as 'bubbling over). It marks the end of the month of Margazi (generally considered a non auspicious month where everything is left dormant, perhaps because it fall during the winter solstice).  The advent of Sankranti marks a new beginning, old stuff is tossed out to make way...