With all dietary restrictions removed now.
Yesterday was the last of the special holy Thursdays of Manabasa Gurubara festival, which all women celebrate to seek the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of fortune, wealth, beauty, prosperity, fertility and abundance. At home, she is the one who decides, what we can eat, following our rich rituals and restrictions start to apply from the month of October, when the Kartik Month starts. All kind of dietary restrictions are enforced at home to cultivate devotion and self-discipline, which includes even onions and garlic. And these restrictions continue to apply till the last holy Thursday of Manabasa Gurubara, which was yesterday. She would do all house work herself in the previous evening, thoroughly cleaning the home and then putting the jhoti chita designs at each door and then in front of the Goddess at home. Our daughter is also encouraged to learn and she does practice few of them, as she has to carry over these traditional rituals.
This one is at the main door, you can watch the leg of the Goddess at front of this Jhoti chita, as it's believed, she comes through the doors. It's like symbolizing her entry to the house.
The rear door entrance where our daughter did the design, she tried to do the legs here as well, the Goddess can come through any door to bless us - these strong beliefs and rituals cultivates devotion and truthfulness - we always teach our kids to be truthful and not cheat anyone even in their ignorance.
And then she gets up very early in the morning, to perform the pooja, for which, I have to bring flowers, a mango branch consisting seven leaves, duba ghasa (Bermuda grass) all fresh. My garden comes in my rescue in these times, as getting fresh flower in Winter is difficult. Usually people collect all of these previous day, so that they can do the pooja before sun rise. But given our responsibilities, we have decided to get up very early and collect these fresh. In older days, kids were not allowed to go to school, and forced to stay at home, but in recent times, we don't enforce such restrictions - rituals are good, but no blind beliefs.
It's so interesting to see a branch of Mango used in our pooja, I was thinking, may be our ancestors thought it to be a good idea because, the branches would grow fresh and bushy as flowers would start coming in Mango trees after Winter. All our rituals must have been created from observations for betterment - during this time, diseases spread to fish/chicken and creating rituals to not eat them was probably a good idea to not enforce but prohibit in a peaceful way, for betterment of our health.
So from today, we have freedom to bring non-veg to home and eat as we want. She follows all rituals, and eats only fish and mutton (very rarely), that too only on wednesdays, but the enforcement on us is over - she loves to cook and feed us, even though she does not eat egg or chicken.
Women are treated as Lakshmi of our Home, so all rules made by her at home are strictly followed. Unfortunately, with core family concepts in place, many people do not obey all these rituals, but in big joint families, where people live with elders, you can't dishonor her or disobey any rule - you will be shown the door, with all support going in her favor.
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