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.