Traditions

I come from a classic south Indian brahmin family, so traditions, for us, were mainly cultural or religious. The festivals we celebrated, the food that we typically ate at home, the way we celebrated festivals etc were all deeply rooted in my parents' background. The only traditions I can remember outside of those were celebrating Christmas and moonlight dinners.

My dad loved the idea of Christmas so when I was about 6 or so, we began celebrating the festival, with a tree fakes up from anything - a palm tree hung with sparkles, a glittering green paper outline of the shape glued to the wall...and he'd slip Christmas presents under our pillows. Goes with his Santa-like urge to constantly do things for other people. And waay back when I was still a toddler, we lived in a house with a gigantic veranda in Bangalore. On full moon nights, my parents would set out dinner on the veranda and give me 'kai-thutthu' - make little morsels of the food and give them to me one by one. The three of us would sit out and enjoy the cool, mysterious light of the moon and the fresh Bangalore breeze for hours.

My family now is as far from traditional as we can get. With North, south, hindu and muslim cobbled together and English as the lingua franca, coupled with two adults neither of whom is religious, and yet intent on balancing all the various aspects of our identity, it's a little hard to know what traditions to follow. And yet, I feel that traditions are important - both cultural traditions and family ones. They give you a sense of rootedness and belonging and a whole set of in-jokes that help bind siblings together years after they have moved to different continents.

So I figured we'd borrow and invent whatever traditions made sense to us. So here's what we do: Cultural traditions include Golu at dussehra ( have blogged about it before) and celebrating Christmas. Religious traditions include going without onions/ garlic/ eggs during Dussehra and most Hindu festivals, making modak on Ganesh Chathurthi and telling the kids the Ganesha/ moon story at bedtime. Making Krishna's footsteps and poha-dahi, butter and lots of sweets for Janmashthami. Seviyan on Eid.

Other traditions is where we really let ourselves go and have fun. So we have a birthday tradition - the birthday person wears a crown and we all sing a silly song to the tune of Holi-holiday by Boney M. On A's birthday, I always make chhole-bhaturey at home since it's his favourite dish. The birthday person gets a dinner out with the family to a restaurant of their choice ( I'm hoping the kids palate moved beyond fastfood quick!!!) and to choose the breakfast menu. And come winter, we have many...going to Mughal gardens to see the gorgeous flowers. Going to Diva for fondue. A picnic in Lodhi Gardens...