Graphics for Glory: Ganesh day

Wednesday, Sept 3, I ran upstairs to take Suzie something.. It was the day of the festival of Ganesh. Suzie and Nicki were in the kitchen making special food. They were both dressed up quite a bit, Suzie was wearing a sari! Can you imagine wearing your Sunday best to cook things! The househelper "Laci" was also busy cooking things. So Nicki was stirring this dough on the cooktop, and Suzie was busy flattening the dough. The dough was made with rice flour, then you flatten it into a round shape, then put it in this mold, put stuff inthe middle, then smash it together, basically like making "momos" or chinese dumplins, do you know what those are? Like hollow crescents. So I observed a while, then realized I really needed to be getting some pictures of this! So I ran downstairs and grabbed my camera, and returned upstairs to continue observing. Well just observing would only do for so long... I had to get my hands involved! So there's 2 kinds we were making... one was sweet and the other was spicy. Well the sweet ones you pressed into this mold and were all pretty. But the spicy ones had to be steamed so you have to leave the sides open. Well Nicki was doing those, and she started smashing the side together, and i said, "No you leave that part open!" She said, literally, "Oh crap! You're right!" So she was trying to fix it, meanwhile Suzie comes over and fusses at her [she hadn't heard me i guess] So nicki says, "Yes I know, Laura told me, she reminded me!" Oh man! I wish you could have heard Suzie's reaction to this... "LAURA!!! Laura told you?!?! Ohhh Nicki!!! That is very bad!!" So then we all had a laugh over me, the foreigner, telling a national how to make their special national food!! After a while, I had settled into my routine and was going about things pretty quickly. I was having a good ole time, thinking back to days of cooking in the kitchen with my Mom or grandmother. Meanwhile Suzie is feeling awful about "putting me to work." We were just talking the whole time. That's when I learned the truth about what we were making... this wasn't like Christmas foods that you make to eat around Christmastime. These were special foods for Ganesh. Apparently these are his favorite foods. Oh and there had to be exactly 21 of each of the "momos" because 21 is Ganesh's favorite number. After they've told me this, Nicki goes into her rant. She asks her Mom, "Ohh really? And how do you know that this is Ganesh's favorite food? Did he come down here himself and tell you?" and "Ohh, how do you know 21 is Ganesh's favorite number? Has he told you that himself?" Then that brings up a generational topic. Nicki informed me that people like her mother grew up doing these traditions every year with their parents, and they just went along with the motions. Well now Nicki's generation is coming up and asking "Why?" for each special thing they do. Well Suzie's generation never asked why and can't explain why they do these things, they just do them. And Nicki's generation refuses to keep doing these things without knowing why they're doing something.

This is what the steamed ones looked like.