I cleaned up the kitchen, and arranged some pictures of Saraswati around a big, shiny brass oil lamp. Then decided to go all out, and added Lakshmi, Kali and Parvati, and Ganesha, and Venkateshwara to those, picked some flowers from my garden (a rose or two, some calendula, plus some white flowers whose name I’ve forgotten). Filled the lamp with sesame oil, added some wicks and lit it (and very pretty it looked, indeed). Added some pretty candles around it, as well. Placed some fruit in a bowl as offering, and made some shira (it was too late for chakkarai pongal, which I’ll make today for Vijaya Dasami).

Then, I placed some books, our instruments and so on in front of the goddesses (and gods).  Our daughter S, and my husband, W, joined in, and added theirs, as well. And, for the first time in about nine years, I pulled out my sitar, sat down and played Bhairavi on it — just a few lines of alap. (Does that bode well? I pray so!)

Then, the three of us sang some madrigals (not very Indian!), played “Pennies From Heaven,” each on our own guitar, while singing it together, and then, moved on to a Hindustani Khyal bandish “Sakhi mori” (Raga Durga, appropriately), which all three of us sang together. Then, S and I sang a couple of Carnatic songs (just the first few lines, because it was getting late) — somehow, S echoed me nicely, without actually knowing the songs.

Then, we sat down and ate.

Thus concluded our Pan-Indian-American Saraswati-Durga-Lakshmi-and-Ganesh puja.

Never mind that I did it all incorrectly. I called my mother, and she was very pleased that I’d decided to follow some sort of tradition.
She said, “You did it ‘manasala’ — from the mind and heart.”

So, yes. That’s that.

I did it for S, who at age ten, is suddenly more interested in Indian culture, and asked for it.  My husband, an atheist, liked it too.
And I guess it fulfilled some need of mine. Culture? Tradition? A hearkening back to my young self?

Mind you, we aren’t religious at all (no offense intended to those who are.)