Vakratunda Mahakaya....

"Vakratunda Mahakaya Suryakoti Samaprabha
Nirvignam Kurume Deva
Sarva kaala sarvada"

This is a prayer to the leader of the "ganas" (the demi-gods worshipping Lord Shiva).
The purport being:

"Oh Lord with twisted tusk and great body and the one who shines with the brillinance of a crore of suns
Please remove the obstacles in my path
always and in all times"

Last Wednesday was "Vinayaka Chaturthi", a festival celebrated with great reverence by lots of Hindus. It has been quite sometime since i celebrated this festival, for the last year i was at Pune and the last 4 years before that, i was at BITS, Pilani (My alma mater).
I woke up early in the morning (8.30 on Holiday is sure early :) ), by them time my friend already cooked Vadas and Chakrapongali. We set the puja mandap (thanks to our maid) and lighted incense and oil lamps. Another friend (He claims that he is a Hindustani Classical Singer) started singing prayers (His singing is of no rarity to us, but this is one of the very first times we liked his effort). Then we went to the temple near by and came back to pounce on the food.

I called up my mum and she said that there is a mandatory chore that we have complete. The story reading!! Yes, we read a story on this occasion and then put "turmeric smeared rice grains" on our head. Since we did not have the literature ready for this story in our native language (Telugu), i read it out for the convenience of my friend (Bengali) in English..LOL!!!
It was very funny and we enjoyed the day thoroughly.