Off non-veg

I turn vegetarian tomorrow....no, not forever. For 30 days, till the month of "karkkidakam" gets over. While there are traditional and religious reasons for this, and most of Kerala follows suit, i did not follow this till about a few years ago.

The tradition must have started for varied reasons, i'd like to believe that one of them is health as monsoon is not really the best time to indulge in non vegetarian food. Also, this is considered a time when food was scarce( this is the age before preserved foods came into picture) , and hence the order of month was eating frugally, resting your body and rejuvenating for the harvest months ahead and spending the remaining of the day in prayers.

My best memories of Karkkidakam are the day before the month, which is today...The house used to get scrubbed, dusted and polished. And in the evening, the dust collected , along with cobwebs, a broken earthern vessel, an old broom on a tattered woven basket was taken out of the house by our servant, who used to go far away from the house and throw away all the dirt for the year..and we used to chant for the " Goddess of dirt to go far away, and the Gooddess of cleanliness and goodness to come home". And for the next 30 days we worshipped the goddess of goodness inside the house.

Karkkidakam is also " Ramayana Masam" , where the epic is read at every house throughout the month. For us, that mean two readings,my ammamma used to read ramayana everyday, all through the year. Her reading ramayan was our signal for the end of the day; lights used to be switched off immediately after she finished. So in karkkidakam, there was one reading in the morning and one at night.

I wish i could read the ramayana - to myself and V. Considering the firefighting that we go through every day, that seems a remote possibility. I will still try..though i need a refersher from mom on where all i can start from and where i can stop during reading( those who do not know- you can't just open a page and read..there are rules to reading ramayan).

And go off non veg, for that is the closest i can get to eating frugally. So i am going to do exactly that. Last year TB volunteered to stay off non veg and managed that for exactly 72 hours...This year, he has volunteered again, and i am counting in hours.