Shradh Paksh - Betma days

Two days after Anant Chatursashi another festivity starts for a fortnight this is called Shradh Paksh from a day after full moon until the new moon day. It is considered auspicious for remembering your ancestors who departed and to get their blessings. You celebrate or observe the day of their departure as per Hindu day called tithi that falls between 1st and 15th, the new moon cycle (krishna paksh). It is believed that when you remember your ancestors these days and pray for them and offer food and seek blessings of brahmins and also offer food to crows who take the food directly to your ancestors in the heaven and you are blessed. Since there are only 15 days in the calendar it is ensured that your ancestors must have departed on one of those days, you may not, however, remember the exact day of many of your ancestors beyond one or two generations so you pray for all the undated departed ancestors on day 15, the new moon day, also called Sarvpitr amavasya. That's the grand finale of the fortnight when you pray for everyone in your ancestry. You do not start any new work till everyone of your ancestors has blessed you, so you won't buy or start any new venture during this fortnight and do the same a day after, in the next fortnight with vengeance for all your accumulated desires that you have been holding for two weeks and there starts another series of festivities to begin with navratri ( 9 nights of praying Durga with her various names like Kali, Annapurna etc.).

Coming back to Shradh Paksh, Brahmins would suddenly become far and few in those days as everyone in Betma would seek their blessings by offering food during these days. All three of us brothers would get invitations in advance for giving "blessings" to our jajmaans (host). Usually, all three of us will go to the same houses but on "popular days" when too many ancestors have departed or on Sarvpitr amavasya we would go separately. Those days and even now in villages the houses were built based on the communities so you would have a Rajput mohalla, a kaachhi mohalla, different harijan ( in those days they were called by a different name which is now termed illegal) mohalla etc. etc. Others would be spread across the village. There were a bunch of Bania families in our neighborhood and we would get "booked" for different dates to "bless" them by accepting invitations. Except on the days when we would seek blessings of our own ancestors those days lunch will be prepared only for grandpa/ baa, (In Maharashtra, MP and other Hindi speaking belt Ba or Baa is a term used to address elderly male, usually grandfathers with respect, however, in gujarati culture baa is used for mothers and grandmothers), parents and my sister as traditionally girls were not considered for seeking blessings. It was a big fortnight long food festivals. The usual preparation those days would be halwa, poorie, kheer, raita, papad and some seasonal vegetables. We would get formal invitation and a reminder in the morning and would have a proper and long bath and dress up for the occasion and leave home to bless the families of our jajmaans. We would be offered a clean dhurrie to sit on the floor and a four inch high patla/chowki (a stool) where a large brass thali( plate) would be placed with two or three katoris (bowls) along with a brass glass of drinking water. As such the whole host family would gather around and pray with folded hands and request us to have our food but since all fifteen days they can't shut their shops so sometime they would take turns and male members would just show their faces and go back to attend to their shops ( most of our hosts had either a grocery or a grain shop (आ ढ त की दुकान). Although we were kids but growing up kids eat as much as adults and specially if these are meals in a Bania household and that too special ones for the occasion, you would start eating only after you have taken a small portion of every offering and place it in one corner and took some water in your palm and put it around your plate as an anjali , that is a prayer to God whom you offer the food, prayed lord , before you start eating. The feast would go on for half an hour, and the last of the house and other ladies would not let you finish till you are full to the brink of bursting and almost overflowing with the food and burped. You will be offered a hand wash while you are still sitting and a clean towel be given to wash hands and mouth. Once finished the host will put a tilak on your forehead and offer you a rupee coin as dakshina. A rupee was lot of money in mid sixties that could fetch you an equivalent to 20 "amma-ke-bade" or more. More than the food we would look forward to this happiest ending. As we never got any pocket money ( we were told that we don't need any money on us and all our "needs and demands" will get fulfilled when asked for, the fact was that, that never happened). We felt like VIPs in those fifteen days.

This trend reduced a lot as we reached our adolescent age and later also when we moved to a large city Indore, where we knew only few people who were  far and spread across the city. However, I had couple of Bania friends in my class in the final year of school and their families would insist on following the same, so the feasting continued for some more years.

Oh! How much I miss those feasts and godly importance of having born in a brahmin family.

(Representative picture downloaded from Internet).