Happy Navaratri

Happy Navaratri everyone.  I hope you are having fun and looking forward to all the festivities this weekend.  I have people coming home for visiting my Navaratri Bombe/Kolu/Gollu and take Tambulum.  I have quite a few houses to visit as well.  Having born and brought up in Bangalore, I have never been to Mysore during Dussehra.  We have always visited after the fact to see the illumination of Mysore Palace. 

This is the first time I am keeping the Bombe at the behest of my youngest daughter.  This is a tradition I intend to keep.  So, it fell upon my husband to build the steps.  Many useful articles on this from our blogger friends in America.  Here is what he built.

My mom had already purchased Dashavatara set for me.  I picked up terracotta Ganesha from Kalamadhyam in Bangalore.  I purchased the idols of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati in a local store here. Rest is what we had collected over years.

Console table at the entryway also got dressed up for Navarati.

Wishing you all a wonderful Navaratri. Hope you have fun.

Girls at The Key bunch are celebrating their 3rd Birthday.   Happy Birthday "The Key Bunch" and wishing you many more.  I am linking this to September Carnival: A Bit of India in Every Home! 
Also Its Festival time

Happy Weekend everyone



This terracotta Ganesha pendant was handmade by my SIL's friend.  It is fabulous, is it not?  I can't wait to use it with one of my Saree's for one of the Navaratri invites.

Its the weekend before Navaratri.  Its always a busy weekend for me.  I hope I accomplish what all I have planned for this weekend.  Wishing you all a very relaxing weekend.  

Patachitra paintings of Orissa

Patachitra is a traditional art form of Orissa.  It is done on palm leaves.  The images are carved on the palm leaves.  In olden days scriptures were written on the same medium.  In Kannada we call it 'Talegari' (ತಾಳೆ ಗರಿ ) otherwise also known as 'talaPatra'.  On my recent visit Bangalore, I was at a art and craft show.  We came across a booth who was selling paintings for Orissa.  When we asked about the beautiful work, man who owned booth was gracious enough to explain it to us.

Artist carve or draw on the talegari and create the design one leaf at a time.   When they are carving a border, the design has to be uniform.  If they make a mistake at the end of the leaf, it thrown out and redone.  Once the pattern on the leaf is finished, they smear kaajal on it to fill the spaces if it a black and white art as shown in the pictures or they use vegetable dye or the mineral dye to fill the colors.


Notice the intricate patten in the right picture

Enjoy the not so good pictures I took.  I wish we had more time and less rain there.

Some of the items which were for sale

  We bought the story of Ramayana which is on the far right.   Hope these pictures give you a idea of what we purchased.   We also purchased a Ganesha but it was given away as a gift before I could take a picture.

Do share if you own any Patachitra painting.



I am back

I was on a short but hectic yet some what satisfying trip to my home town, Bangalore India.  I went via Singapore this time.

We had a long layover at the Singapore Airport.   We took naps and we did some window shopping, rather I did some window shopping but my daughter bought herself a bag.  We have done the sightseeing etc already so there was no enthusiasm to head out as it was raining as well.  So we decided to hangout at the terminals.

 I was amazed at the Orchids they had in the terminals in the airport. I have just begun collecting orchids for the home.  I have not had much success.  Out of 5 I purchased 3 have survived.  Of the three I almost killed one but a dear friend of mine nursed it back and it is doing well now.  I have not given up hope.  I plan on being successful.  So far I have had good luck with rest of the plants in my garden.  

I have several pictures I took as the collection was amazing. I am just posting a few from my collection.  I had not seen some of the colors.  Did you know certain variety of orchids are actually poisonous?

With all the walking around we did in the terminals, we took full advantage of the free foot massage machines they have in the terminal.  Both my daughter and myself got several foot massages.  Oh How I wish I had one such machine at home.

I plan on doing couple of more updates about my India trip.  So stay tuned.