Thursday, June 23, 2011

happy karva chauth Damodar Mall

RANJIT and Payal Saxena live in Noida near Delhi in a newly constructed apartment block.Ranjit is a software consultant with a multinational while Payal,an engineer herself,is a stay at home mom.Apart from everything else,Payal loves Karva Chauth for one thing,the fresh feeni,the threadlike concoction that is soaked in milk and eaten early in the morning.The sweet is available only for this festival and isnt to be seen for the rest of the year.Though it is Payal who,as the fasting wife,is supposed to eat feeni,the entire family loves it and joins her in the morning to enjoy this specialty.Feeni is an import from Rajasthan,certainly not native to Punjab and UP,the two largest states for karva chauth celebrations.No Holi in the Marwari neighbourhood of Andheri is complete without the traditional thandai,a cooling drink made with exotic ingredients like almonds,black pepper,poppy seeds and crystallized rose petals (gulkand).The Deshpandes in Amravati in Maharashtra always have one dish on the platter on the day of universal fasting,sankashti sabudana khichdi.Sabudana,or tapioca sago,was originally an import from distant Tamil Nadu.So how did it end up in far away Amravati For Satyanarayan puja,a key component is the prasad,the holy offering,which is almost always sheera,made from white rava or semolina.The tradition of Satyanarayan puja goes back to the days when the household staples were wheat flour and unrefined jaggery,certainly not semolina and white sugar.These,one would assume,were manufactured products from a distant location and offered to the gods as an exotic food,made especially for this festival.In fact,theres a distinct pattern in the way festivals are celebrated across India.Festivals are and always have been a cultural license to feast and indulge,for the individual and the family.Every celebration is accompanied by food that was once upon a time imported from a distant place.In the days of cooking at home from scratch with local raw ingredients,upwas items like sabudana,rajgira atta,bhagar,sweet potatoes and festival foods made with ..............

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