Sunday morning with apprehension !! Abhishek and Aishwarya were to land from Frankfurt a little after midnight and I had kept up to go and fetch them from the airport after picking up the mrs, coming in from Paris. But their flight had a technical snag at Rome where the two were on promotional activities for their respective watch brands, Longines and Omega. There is always anxiety when things concerning airplanes come up. So was spending the night wondering what the outcome of their travel would be. Finally the aircraft repaired, delayed the connect from Frankfurt, had to switch flights to Kuwait to catch an Air India connect from there into Mumbai by 7:30 AM !! Phew !

Anyway happy to see them all home and safe, exhausted but home at last ; and just in time for the ceremony within the family of some auspiciousness. Aishwarya’s sister in law, her brother’s wife, is pregnant and as is the custom a ceremony is held called ‘godh bharayi’. This literally means, filling up her lap. the mother to be is decorated in all finery and blessings are given to her from all the elders in the family. She receives a lot of gifts and an entire bagful of things to eat. Things of her choice, things she likes. After the ceremony, the girl leaves for her ‘maike’, her Mother’s house for her delivery, if it is her first child.

Its a sweet ceremony. All the relatives from far and near get together to bless the girl. Colored rice is placed or thrown on her head and all the different kinds of eatables are placed before her. I asked some of the elder ladies from both sides what the relevance of this ceremony was. Its a symbolic gesture of happiness that she is now to prepare herself for the final months before delivery, travel to her Mother’s house and eat whatever her desire is to eat. I believe in the initial months of the pregnancy there are limitations to what the pregnant mother can consume, so the day of the ‘godh bharayi’ is when she has the liberty and desire to go past all her dietary restrictions.

I have no idea where it originated from, or what prompted our ancestors to introduce such practice and ritual, but my ’samdhan’, Aishwarya’s mother had a vague impression. In the olden days and years the mortality rate of pregnant women was high. The elders in the home or the midwives took care of child birth. Hospitals and sophisticated medical care, was absent due to the poverty and lack of facilities in the rural areas. Sending the girl off for her first delivery was to make the girl comfortable in the surroundings of her Mother’s home and the food and eats were perhaps given as a gesture of fulfilling her every desire, before mortality unfortunately and god forbid, would take over. Also the length of the journey being long and tedious, food was given as a supply for feeding oneself, especially to the pregnant lady, in time of need ; the olden days not having the resources to provide food, were it to be immediately required.

Educated and equipped with all the relevant information, we dispersed rapidly to our own eating, which had the distinction of being the typical South Indian flavor of Mangalore, the region where Aishwarya and her parents came from. In all a most warm and endearing afternoon.

And then there was the Sunday crowd, enlarged and extended today because of the first ‘visarjan‘ of the Ganapati into the sea. Crowds and masses of people converge to the water front from different parts of the city, carrying the elephant god, Ganesh ji ceremoniously into his last journey before being offered to the waters of the Arabian Sea. Our dresses, Abhishek’s and mine, traditional because of the ceremony. The crowds a little more ecstatic than on previous Sundays. Note the arms wide spread enthusiast on top of the bus as he waves off to us. Ha ha … such joy !! One of the regulars on Sunday happened to meet me in office for an entirely unconnected matter and desired that I stand on an elevation of sorts before every appearance on the Sunday because, most of the audience at the back never got to see me. So a step up bench has been asked to be constructed by our permanent painter, builder, contractor, designer and every other odd job under the sun.

The next few days shall be filled with the sound of music and drums and prayer for Ganesh ji and then his final journey to the sea - and the hoards of happy revelers that shall go past Jalsa since it is situated on the road that travels straight into the sea. A great feel to just sit on our balcony and watch the different groups of Mumbaikars, sing dance and enjoy that one moment perhaps in their lives, when they shall be free from all other commitments. In a sense a day of solace for those that never get an opportunity to be a part of that festival. I wish I could be. Perhaps next year we shall invite Ganapatiji to come to our house and give us his abundant blessings !!

My love ~

Amitabh Bachchan