The Banyan tree and other stories
Little things that tick the contentment meter!
On November 12, is Diwali. A festival that's celebrated in many parts of India, and popularly known as the Festival of Lights. While the festival can be called a pan-India celebration, the customs and traditions associated with the five days of Diwali are different depending upon the part of India you call home. As a … Continue reading Diwali customs – some forgotten, some held on to…
The food was set up on beautifully decorated tables (the theme of the décor seemed to be an ode to autumn). There were cured meats, cheeses, sweets, rye bread and many other traditional foods and beverages. There was also a display of how authentic Šakotis (Tree cake) is made in Lithuania. Šakotis means "branched" and it has a distinctive shape. It's baked by painting layers of batter onto a rotating spit over a wood-burning fire in a special oven.
This past week was Diwali. Since this was to be a Diwali in lockdown, my husband and I weren't expecting much. We had bought a few packets of sweets from the Indian store to give to our neighbours and had thought of putting the boxes in paper bags and leaving them outside their doors. Apart … Continue reading What inclusion feels like…
One of the elements of the expat or the immigrant life is the longing and the loneliness. The longing for friends and family who live in another part of the world, the loneliness - at least initially when you don't know a lot of people and miss the deep friendships that you once had. And so, when a festival comes up, you wish for both - companionship and friends to celebrate the good days, to revel in shared customs and traditions and to repeat over a hundred times how one misses the home that one has left behind.
Walking tours, taster dance classes, musical performances, literary readings, immersive cinema, open air concerts - the Culture Night in Dublin had so many things on offer and everything was free. And if you were lucky like us, the night had many other unintended surprises, like a grinning young man, randomly approaching you and asking if you had any weed please?
There's something about a feast that is served on a banana leaf, with as much as 26 different varieties of food, all vegetarian and to have people serving you with a lot of love and affection. It is for this feast of Onam sadya, that we took a bus, wearing our traditional Indian outfits with husbands and children in tow, and head to the North of Dublin. Because how can one possibly resist a feast so divine?
The Banyan tree and other stories 