Happy Janmashtami

Krishna Janmashtami, the festival celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna, is an important festival in the Hindu calendar. It is observed on the eighth day (according to the Lunar Calendar), of the dark half in the month of Shravana (again Lunar Calendar). I think personally, that this can be compared to the Christmas in the western world.

This is such a special festival for us specially because we all are Krishna Bhaktas (Devotees)and His Birthday is SUPER Special. Gauri already knows about “Krishna’ since she always offers prayers to Krishna before her meals (something that her nanu taught her and her prayers goes like this – with her eyes half closed half peeking she says “Krishna please eat this food ….please please please….” And sometimes she commands “Krishna eat ALL my food”, she looks so cute when she says that).

Every year we both observe fast the entire day and only eat/ drink after the birth of the Lord at midnight. Only milk and milk products are consumed, as these were the favorites of Lord Krishna (and mine too). We usually have a big celebration at our house and we invite lots of friends and family for the evening Puja, Abhishek and Prasadum. We also have some Krishna Games to add some fun to Krishna’s Birthday party but this year we choose to keep it small since both Neel and Gauri were super exited and it didnt seem feasible to cook that lavish Prasadum, decorate our Deities with wew clothing, jewelery and flowers and I knew its would be too tempting for Neel (now crawling) to leave ‘Baal-Gopal” on his alter. Last year we had a mini-accident when Gauir burnt her palm in an attempt to grab the light Inscent stick; we knew it would be best to keep the celebration very small this time. But we still had lots of fun and while Mani and I were singing our favorite Bhajans, Gauri declared “where is Krishna’s Elmo cake?” and “we need to sing Happy Birthday to Krishna” and “Krishna says he wants Balloons” – I wasn’t surprised at her demands – she was right, that’s the minimum we need to do for a birthday. Sorry Gauri – I’ll remember the Cake and the Balloons next year. Both Gauri and Neel dressed in traditional Indian clothes and boy did they ever look cuter!!

Happy Janmashtami to All – Hari Bool!!