Shreelu's 1st tonsure cermony

Chadakarana:

 Puttu ventrukalu( the hair which is there at birth) is tonsured as a tradition among Hindus which is known as Mudan(Hindi) or Chadakarana(Sanskrit).

This ritual is performed usually at temples or at home whichever is the custom in the family.

This is done in odd months of 1^st year (usually 11^th month), on any good day. But if it is not performed in first year, then we have to wait till the 3^rd year, which is too long. So I decided to have this done in any odd months of 1^st year.

Pic before tonsure

We planned to perform this ritual in 9^th month, the reason was I wanted Shreelu to have at least some hair for her birthday, and tonsuring in 11^th month she would be completely bald for her 1^st birthday.

I went ahead with the planning and asked Babu uncle (our family purohit, a friend’s dad) and we decided it to be performed on 30^th October 2014 in Tirumala Balaji temple. It is our tradition to perform it there.

I was a quick decision that we did not have time to invite family and friends. So it was just a family function.

According to Hindu beliefs it is said that this hair which is there during birth holds the past life’s traits, so this should be removed on an auspicious day and removed completely. A part from this, I have read in some articles that tonsuring baby’s hair allows sunlight to fall directly on the head, which is a main source of Vitamin D and this helps the skull bones which are still not fully developed to develop well.(I am not able to find the article right now to link it here).

Shreelu’s Mundan:

Since we live in Tiruapthi, it was not difficult for us to make arrangements for this function in a short time. My father in law left in the afternoon on 20^th Oct 2014 to Tirumala and made all the arrangements like booking the cottages, tickets for darshan etc. Later in the evening my mom, my MIL, Dad, Pinky(sis) left to Tirumala. Ram came early in the morning around 4 o clock directly from Bangalore. We had to wait for Eswar's arravial from Hyderabad, who reached tirumala around 9 o clock.

Ram was very hesitant about performing this ceremony thinking Shreelu will be hurt if she moves, she might cry etc etc. He was very nervous and was continuously asking the barber to be careful. He was not able to hold Shreelu's head tight. Seeing his panic, the barber asked him to leave Shreelu and asked me to hold her.

Barbar asking Ram to be cool and asking me to hold Shreelu's head tight.

Shreelu was scared as my FIL and I were holding her very tightly and she started crying. Some how we completed this ritual and later went to the Darshan.

My cute little baby seeing her Babai helplessly.

That helpless look :(

Darshan:

In Tirumala, the Devastanam provides free darshan for the couple with kid below one year.

We are asked to carry the birth certificate and this is checked at the entrance. This darshan is only at 12 PM and 2 PM. Ram, Shreelu and I headed towards the Supadam complex. There a small kid asked us he will apply the Naamalu on our foreheads, though we were not much interested we went ahead and asked him to do that.

 

Muggariki moodu namalu :P

We went into the Supadam queue complex and were in the queue. There were many young kinds and their parents for the darshan. Shreelu was so happy to see many kids and she was trying to interact with them. Nearing to the main temple in the queue, we heard someone calling our names, we just turned back to see it was Sarat’s (Ram’s friend) parents from Nellore. We were very surprised with the pleasant meeting and had some chat with them in our queue. Later in the temple, might be due to anxiety or due to the people’s loud chanting, Shreelu started screaming and it was real crazy time till we came out of the temple.

Ear boring ceremony:

This is the ceremony performed along with mundan. As soon as we decided to perform these two rituals, first thing I did was to call Shreelu’s pediatrician to ask the precautions to be taken while doing this. The doc said its ok to perform the mundane at temples but he suggested us to go for gun shot method in any jewelers shop to avoid infections and other mess. He suggested to apply Betadine and ice cubes if its done in traditional way.  But somehow I decided we will perform this also in Tirumala only feeling sentimental.

After darshan we went to our cottage and took rest for some time, later we all left to ear piercing complex.  There the purohits performed the rituals, I expected Shreelu to cry a lot but she didn’t cry. She became normal in 2 minutes.

Unfortunately didn’t take the pictures at Ear boring complex L

 

 

First pic after tonsure and ear pierce 

Sreelu's 1st Bhogi pallu function

In South India Sankranthi is one of the important festivals celebrated and its a 3 day festival starting with Bhogi.

Whole month of Dhanur masam starting from Dec mid till Sankranthi is considered auspicious in Andhra Pradesh, and I remember my mom getting up early in the morning, visiting Lord Vishnu temple and having rangoli along with gobbemma in the street this whole month till Kanuma. 

We reached early morning around 3:45 to tirupathi, while we saw my FIL litting the Bhogi manta, we had a real "warm" welcome with bhogi manta and we all friends had a chit chat near the bonfire. 

Shreelu assumed the bonfire as biggg harathi, and was going on praying in front of it. :P 

Water was heated in Bhogi and we all took bath that day with bhogi neellu(water heated in the bonfire).

This bhogi was special for us as Shreelu is here with us.

Bhogi pallu is a ritual celebrated on the evening of bhogi, where children below 5 years are beautifully dressed with pattu paavadas and they are made to sit on stool or chair and the mixture of bhogi pallu, flowers, coins, sugarcane is showered on them, followed by harathi. This is performed as a ritual to remove nara dristi and is believed to protect children from evil forces.

Neighbors were invited and small children were also invited. When elders bless the children by showering bhogi pallu, coins etc, the kids are asked to pick the coins showered. 

While performing this function, Praneetha (Ram's cousin's daughter) was also with us so we celebrated this for both together.

thats my mom blessing my daughter with bhogi pallu

Arisela veduka:

Shreelu had started walking from Dec starting, and as mentioned in my previous posts, we have a ritual to be performed when the little one starts walking. 

We decided to perform this function along with bhogi pallu function. Shreelu was supposed to be made to walk on thse Ariselu by her grand fathers.. So my dad and father in law made her walk on the ariselu. Shreelu was super excited seeing those laid on a row and wanted to take them and play. Some how her thathas managed to make her walk on them. 

Sankranthi: 

We dindt have much to do on Sankranthi, except having unlimited delicious and traditinal foods.. So later that evening we decided we would do something which we can remember for long. We decided we will plant some plants which we were postponing since many days.

Bought some gauva and mango plants and planted them by the kids hands. Shreelu, Chaitu and Pranee planted gauva plants that evening with help of Ram and Eswar

Later that evening, Shreelu was gifted gold bangles by her thatha on the festive occasion.