Vara Lakshmi Vratham

This is the festival I celebrate with much dedication every year. Last week I celebrated it with my daughter. We do this pooja in the 2^nd Friday of Sravana Masam the most auspicious day. And if it comes with pournami that’s very good. This year pournami(full moon day) is on Tuesday. I don’t know why I am fascinated about this day and the pooja on the whole. I don’t regularly do pooja even a Namaskaaram to the God though I have great respect towards our God’s. But Vara lakshmi vratham takes a special place somewhere in the corner of my heart and every year i do the pooja. My mother laughs at me as when I tell her I don’t want to do the pooja this year and guess what the next when I wake up I change my mind and do it. It happens every year and this year too. And I don’t know ABC of how to do a pooja I simply follow the book or printouts I find. I think the real essence of doing the pooja doesn’t matter how u do or what u do but how u feel to do and with dedication u do. It should come out of ur heart. Anything that done whole heartedly how bad it may look it will turn out well. I am not a strong believer in god as far as I know even I go to temples to get a peaceful mind and because now a days the temple’s are stacked with people I avoid them on festive days. when its rush and where we can’t even breathe properly. Guys we want peace at least to pray not think of other people walking on us. So after coming to USA I feel so relieved. As u all must have known this festival pooja and importance through other blogs. I am not repeating it. But if u haven’t and need to know anything about it you can find more details here.

This is the 6^th year I am celebrating the festival after I have married my dear R. Can u believe it? I too can’t J . Good me. Even in my childhood I used to ask my mom don’t forget my toram( a thread knotted with different leaves and flowers) as I won’t get a holiday from school like my mom has. Good old days the mehandi we put on our hands and happily showed in school and do u know how beautiful our hands used to be. Hakuna Matata(it means no worries). Even now I have no worries but somehow I miss my past days. And not to mention as I am a last minute decider as usual I wanted to keep it simple so I selected the neivedyam to be simple yet nice. In my house sweets won’t go quickly and no time to make Gaarelu and poornaalu my all time favourites. So I made Pulihora, chekkara pongali, Kesari. We decorate a coconut like the Lakshmi devi the goddess we r praying with jewels and flowers.

Look in the picture my little girl is helping in doing pooja.

And friends what took me so long to post this is my daughter there is a little bit story too. I make it short. We went to New jersey last week. As we planned already I made the pooja simple so nothing is wasted and nothing is messed up. So in that matters everything went well and the trip was also fine. We enjoyed philly down town and New Jersey 6 flags safari and hurricane harbor. My daughter enjoyed a lot in the water and not to mention she got fever when we returned. It will be horrible if our little ones r down with fever. And it lasted for 4 days with high fever. She got little infection in her right ear which caused the fever. Today she was fine and the doc gave Good recovery certificate on the follow up visit(that is today). So at the end all is well. Now I got time for my post. So here I am writing my post. I should mention but we loved the Hurricane Harbour. We will go again but wait for my daughter to grow another yr older.

I completed the pooja successfully and u can observe my lamination which covers all the gods whom I worship. Lord Venkateswara , Sai baba, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Saraswathi, Parvathi Parameshwara with Little Ganesha. Hope u all like it.

I offered chakkerapongali,kesari,pulihora, banana, pomegranate and apples for Neivedyam.