Jammi

As dussehra is coming up, it reminded me of the jammi aakulu. On Dussehra day, we generally give some akshintalu along with some jammi leaves to elder's and take their blessings. I do not know the reason behind it but wanted to share it with all of you. Jammi chettu in english is called "Mimosa". I got small seedling from one of my colleague. I was excited to find that it is Jammi chettu.

Another chamanthi chettu beside jammi chettu at my home.

Batukamma - 2010

New Goddess idols at home

I always had a dream of decorating home in india traditional style. One of the first steps that I took this time when I went to India was to get murthi's of Goddess laxmi (goddess of wealth) and sarawasthi (goddess of study, wisdom and knowledge). This is the first picture after I opened the murthi's, before arranging them as a decoration. As you can see that the home was a total mess after we came back from India. Lot of stuff to clean up and rearrange. So currently I am in that phase at home.

What I did not bring is maala's for ammavaru. which probably will be my next step. These type of idols can be bought at lepakshi stores or at authentic handloom stores.

Traditional Mehendi design

This design is a traditional one, which people used to keep with the leaves of maide ka leave se. Now a days lot of new desins have come up but when you feel traditional or bored or want a quick design I feel going for this. With two infants at home maintaining a smart design for me is a lot of problem because we need to keep it on hands for few hours for it to look right and have nice color. Since I do not have lot of time or patience currently, I opted for simplest design as shown below:

Diwali - Nivali Thali

Indian art

This indian art is called "muggu" in telugu. There is a festival especially for this which comes in january time frame called "Sankranthi". Here is just a sample of it which we did at our home before, to play batukamma festival at our place.

The colors and design is done by my mother and I filled in colors in them. We used a wet chalk (sidewalk chalk pieces) to do the layout and filling colors.

Ganapathi navratri celebrations

This picture is taken on first day of Ganapathi navratri celebrations this time. Starting on August 22nd - August 30th.

Lalitha Puja decoration - July 2009

My Puja Mandir

I respect all gods. Obviously I have soft corner for the indian hindu gods (because I am an indian and hindu too) .

Tattoos Indian style

Baby Shower

Baby shower are done traditionally for giving blessings to mother-to-be for a safer delivery and also for giving wishes for the coming baby. In our tradition we celebrate it by giving 5 types of sweets, 5 types of fruits to the mother-to-be. Also with lot of bangles. You can see some in the following pics.






Update on 04/09/2010:
Some more photos from my cousin's Baby Shower:

Traditional Photo

Photo taken while performing house warming ceremony rituals(Gruhapravesha puja) at one of our relatives home.