Hands on - Henna

This is henna art time. Indian women like to apply henna on the hands during festivals , weddings and other special occasions but not everyone.You have to be very patient for the whole operation.

Powdered henna can be bought from the shops but you can prepare your own by making a paste of henna leaves and adding,sugar, lemon ,oil and tea in it.

Here are some pictures of Mahima who was visiting from Canada last year, getting her hands hennaed. Today she starts school.

Mahima had a lot of fun getting her hands done.

You can get henna on your legs, arms and other body parts.

Nani (grandma) has a go at applying henna on Mahima 's hands.

These are some professionally done hands.(Above)

Today is the Hindu festival of Janamashtimi, the birthday of the Hindu deity Krishna. People are celebrating by decorating their homes and temples. A special 24 hour fast is kept which is broken at mid-night.People make special sweets and food.They have religious and social gatherings where pooja (worship) is offered to Krishna.

This morning I made some homemade peanut butter. I put in our own honey ,made by our garden bees and roasted sesame seeds in it.This is much better than the store bought jars.I also made a South Indian sweet dish called payasam, with milk, dry fruit spices, sugar vermicelli etc. Now I 'm going to make a macaroni casserole. Of course for lunch we had Dal, rice veggies and chapatis with salad etc.

They are relaxing the curfew in the sensitive areas for a few hours each day so the people can go out and buy provisions .But processions and rallies are not permitted.In the midst of all this the members of the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) who are devoted to Krishna worship tried to take out a charriot (rath) procession. They got into a scuffle with the police when they were stopped.

ANOTHER TOPIC

Several stray cats visit our large campus and Sheeba is really not their friend. She will never do this.