Fasting and Feasting - Part 2

So after a huge success of the last post (before anybody protests, let me remind "success means different things to different people") and enormous public demand (I have the gift to read people's unexpressed thoughts) and having survived the TOUGH fast I am back with the part 2 of the Fasting and Feasting in Singapore. Let me start from where I left in the previous post.

I slept with all my mind and house filled with the delicious aromas of the fasting dishes and happily dreamed eating those one-by-ones tastefully with the divine rhythmic chants of Har Har Mahadev. In the morning, I was getting ready for the office when Amisha casually asked me about the address of the Lord Shiva temple so that she and her friends can visit the temple later. I will leave it to the Cricket connoisseurs to declare it a "clean-bowled" or a "stumped" as even after spending one-and-a-half years here, I have no clues about the whereabouts of "orthodox" sacred places (thus Clarke Quay doesn't count) in Singapore.

The other real difficulty North-Indians face in finding a particular God's temple in Singapore is the nomenclature of the temples. Most of the Gods worshiped in north and south India are same, but sometimes they are known by different names. For e.g. Lord Vishnu of North is Lord Perumal of South, Lord Ganesha of North is Lord Vinayaka of South, Lord Kartikeya (Lord Ganesha's brother) of North is Lord Murugan of South. Sometimes the difference is not only in names, but also in their statues and outfits.

Coming back to Amisha's question, the look on my face was enough for her to boot the laptop and Google it. I was expecting her to ask about my availability for the darshan, and was ready with my favorite and well-rehearsed alibi for such demands which is "God is in our heart". She didn't ask though, as she was busy decorating our home Gods with flower petals and pooja items.

I had one guava, two apples, three plums, four bananas, about a dozen strawberries, and a big glass of milk in breakfast. The feasting, err I mean the fasting begun. To support me during the day, Amisha packed my lunch-box with Sabudana Khichdi, Mewe ki kheer, Rajgeera atta pooris, Aloo ki sabzi and two bananas. I was a little disappointed due to the absence of Sighada atta halwa and Banana burfi from the menu but didn't complain as I had to prove that I can survive the fast in such adverse conditions too. It was good that I didn't fret over them as they were part of the dinner menu along with Sabudana Wada, Kuttu aloo ke pakore and Sonth ki chutney. I know this was not enough to fill the stomach, but it was after all a fast and I prayed to Lord Shiva to give me strength to endure it.

The next morning I found Amisha in a state of great bemusement. She was standing in front of the altar (where we keep our Gods) with all the stale flowers that were adorning the Gods the day before, in her hands. I knew instinctively what she was thinking. In India, we can "offer" the stale pooja flower in any water body or beneath any tree, but in a cleanliness-conscious Singapore this is impossible. So what to do with them? After a few minutes of brainstorming and with a very heavy heart we put them in a neat polythene bag and dumped that in the dust bin.