Ayudha Pooja ... Present and Future

Ayudha Pooja is celebrated to worship Lord Vishwakarma. As per the Hindu Mythology, Vishwakarma is the son of Brahma. He is the official architect of the Gods. He has designed and built the palaces of all gods, the flying chariots (Pushpaka Vimana) and the swords and other weapons for Gods. It is believed that he was the architect of the Dwaraka city!

This day is a very special day for workers. They all worship their tools – Weaving machine or the carpentry tool or the lathe machine etc. The machines, tools and even vehicles are cleaned and are smeared with chandan and kum-kum. Big garlands and small vazhai marum are also used for decorative purposes. Workshops, companies small or big celebrate this day in a really grand fashion by giving off pori (Rice Flakes), jaggery, pottu kadalai, sweets and some small gifts. This day is also important for traders as they begin their new accounts.

But we are in a rapidly growing modernized world and how would one be celebrating the Ayudha Pooja say in the year 2020!!! Will we still be going with our regular rituals? Or probably the rituals will still go on but instead of machines and tools we would be smearing chandan and kum-kum to our smart phones, PDA’s or to smartcards!!

Golu...Golu...Golu...

It was one of those lazy Saturday mornings. The sun was already blazing and showed no mercy on the residents of Chennai. I was sipping my coffee with “davarah” on one hand and “tumbler” on the other. Appa was very busy with Hindu and Dina Malar. Amma, as usual in the kitchen was busy with cooking – “Chinna onion sambar” and “parruppu usili”. Suddenly, we heard Amma saying “So what’s the theme for Golu? Should we go and look for the new dolls?” Appa, shook his head and said “Saraswathi, lets go to the doll bazaar and see if there is something really interesting”. Hearing that, Amma speeded up her cooking process.

Within few minutes, I was on my way to AP stores to buy some groceries. In the corridor, I heard a conversation between two mami’s “Have you seen the Maha Vishnu doll that Sharadha had purchased yesterday. It is costly, but it is definitely worth the money. It’s a paper mache doll”.

I was back and Appa was waiting for me with a stool, standing in the bedroom right below the loft. I had to bring down the Golu Padi and the Golu Bommai from the loft. The Golu Padi was well wrapped in a gunny bag and was tied with sanal rope. The racks and the supporting structures were packed separately. The nuts and bolts were placed in a container next to these in the loft. “Kanna, be careful. It’s heavy”.

Within an hour the Golu padi was assembled and was kept in the hall. Amma was busy jotting down things that had to be purchased. It was already noon and we had to leave for the doll bazaar.

By evening, the Golu Padi was decorated with the serial bulbs and satin cloth. The new dolls were placed in the padi. The highlight was the Giri Valam. This was a new addition and we managed to decorate it as much as we can to make it an exact replica of the real one!!!


The theme behind celebrating Dusshera or Navarathri is the victory over the evil. It’s either celebrated as Lord Rama’s victory over the ten-headed Ravana (Commonly known as Ram Leela) or killing of mahisharsura by Goddess Durga (Ambal). Ram Leela is a common thing in the north. On the tenth day of the Dusshera, the effigy of Kumbhakarna, Meghnad and Ravana is burnt. It’s really a wonderful sight to watch. This has been depicted in the film Swades as well. In Tamilnadu, it is celebrated as Golu. The dolls are considered as Gods and Goddesses’ who help Goddess Durga in winning over Mahisharsura.

Today, it’s such an easy task to keep a Golu. Everything is available in the shops – stand, dolls, decorative materials etc. But this wasn’t the case 15 years back. The affluent people employed skilled carpenters to design and architect a Golu padi. I remember my grandma saying “we used make the Golu Padi with trunk boxes, bricks and wooden planks. The dolls used to be very heavy. They were made of clay”.

Its time for me to go and grab “sundal”. Happy Navarathri!!

Mail Forwards…Yikes!!!

I click on my get message button atleast 20-30 times in a day. Probably that’s not strange!! One often waits for some important emails – May be an approval for the vacation from the boss or an acceptance of a patent presentation from the patent committee or from somebody special ;)

But what happens when you click the get message button and the message header reads “FWD:”… The first thing you do is search for the delete button or scroll at a pretty faster rate and then delete it or read it completely and then call up your cube mate and tell him that it’s a wonderful forward or forward it to your mailing list or have a filter in your mail box that routes your mail to the trash can.

But what could be those “compelling reasons” that makes one to click the forward button – Probably it’s really worth for forwarding or ennakku vandhathu, naanum annupuven (I got it and hence I will send it to others) or chumma (Just like that).

But let’s give a thought on the Mail Forwards. What do we get at the end of the day by forwarding mails –we only create trash on the mail box and waste the bandwidth? But demarcating between what is trash and what is not, is definitely debatable. So what’s the solution?

I can’t think of one and have to go home. Until then keep enjoying the mail forwards!!!!