दक्षिणी मराठी खजाना

As the day dawns on the ‘morrow we shall entering a new year Manmatha, we call it Yugadhi i.e. beginning of a new era or new year in our Hindu calendar. Efforts would be afoot in all Desastha households for celebrating the occasion and our house being no exception. Luckily this year flowers are available aplenty at a very reasonable rate.
 
Going back on the time machine, I recollect that last Manmatha year I was in Second Form i.e. 7th Standard in Board High School, Nannilam. My father had sent a person from Pallavapuram to Veethividangan a day prior to Yugadhi to take me there for the Yugadhi function to be celebrated with my parents, siblings, my Ajimma, kaka, kaki and counsins apart from ‘Avo’ (wife of Nondi Raamachaar). The house would be cleaned, decorated with festoons, flowers and bunches of mango leaves. Oh, those days, the pooja in our house, the sumptuous lunch that followed, the enjoyment we children had! Gone are those days. Year after year till 1960 I used to go to Pallavapuram for all functions and festivals, mostly sitting on the carrier of a bicycle sent to fetch me from Veethividangan.

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Now, Yugadhi comes year after year but that sort of an enjoyment, fulfilment, pleasure, etc. which used to be there those days is missing even though we do perform pooja and celebrate the occasion in style. In this era of mechanical living we miss so many things which we as children enjoyed in the bygone era.

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Now that Yugadhi, the New Year Manmatha begins tomorrow, the 21st March 2015, I have pleasure in wishing you all a very Happy New Year. Let us welcome the New Year with the fervent hope that the year would be plentiful of positive aspects, peaceful thereby making us all happy, healthy and of course prosperous.

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Wish you all a very Happy Yugadhi. Let us be friendly with everybody, talk sweet, respect elders and be happy.

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Addendum:

I had made a mention about 'sumptuous lunch' in the bygone era stirring a controversy. Even now the food we get on such festival days is sumptuous. Those days we used to get fresh milk from our own cows, buffaloes plus butter and ghee besides home grown rice, pulses, coconut oil, gingeley oil, coconut, vegetables, etc., etc.

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Now? Where and when the milk that we get on a given date was procured, what sort of a water or whitening material was used on the way between the first seller and us as the ultimate buyers, we do not know. Purity of oil, pulses whether treated or otherwise, vegetables - how they are cleaned/washed/waxed/polished (if only we see the cleaning method of potatoes we would stop consuming them once for all) add to the quality (!) of the food that we consume now.

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But still housewives and husbands as well prepare tempting food items. But where are the eaters? In my childhood I have seen people eaying food voraciously including the Achaars who would do justice to the items served on their plates, I mean banana leaves. Now hardly anybody takes full meals leave alone special items like poli and other sweets and the like; I have come across Purohits who avoid several items and consume very less. 

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There used to be a lunch box, then a Tiffin box and thereafter a betel leaf box (vetthilai petti); now the first two have got combined to make one small box and the third one replaced by a tablet box with two sections viz. before food and after food.

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The total food culture has changed what with multitudes of people switching over to fast food - the food is not fast but it is taking the eaters fast to untold miseries and health problems. Trust I have cleared the air about 'sumptuous' ness.

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March 20, 2015