Dasara And My Village

I always loved Dasara festival since my childhood, partly because it fell after the quarterly exams during the holidays and my visit to my village 'Siddenki'. It's been more than 15 years since I celebrated Dasara in my village, I still feel the excitement I had at that time. My mom would buy me new clothes from the village weavers/cloth merchants and give it for stitching to the village tailor, who had his shop/home in the street next to my ancestral home. I used to bug the tailor every day to stitch my clothes first.

On the Dasara day, mom used to cook chicken curry and vadas for breakfast (no one in my village, including my extended family members ate or knew what a vada was, believe me). She cooks the same dishes even now. For lunch we used to cook mutton curry and bagara rice. An interesting thing was that all the families of my community used to buy goats/sheep in bulk and share the mutton. People in my village still follow the same procedure.

In the evening, I used to go with my father and other male adults to the 'Jammi' pooja and get some bangaram home(leaves of 'Jammi' tree (Mimosa Pudica) is called bangaram). Then comes the ritual of sighting the 'Pala Pitta' (Indian Roller or Blue Jay bird). Immediately after sunset, we visit all the relatives give them jammi leaves and seek blessings of elders and greet cousins. One common thing we find in every house hold is the aroma of non-vegetarian food and odour of liquor. Almost every one is in an inebriated state, but that doesn't undermine their affection towards visitors.

Another important thing worth mention is that, two days before Dasara, we celebrate 'Saddula Bathukamma". Saddi in Telugu means food (packed in a parcel, usually for farmers going to agricultural work). I remember me, my father, my pedda baapu (big father aka. uncles) going to fields and collecting gunugu puvvu, thangedu puvvu to decorate bathukamma. Though this is a festival of the women folk, the entire arrangements are made by the men. After celebrating bathukamma (forgot to tell, bathulkamma is the floral form of village deity), it is immersed in the local pond or lake. 

I become nostalgic when I think of those days. Not that, I cannot go back to my village, but somehow circumstances have become obstacles. I love my village, Siddenki.