Garba-Navratri:) Culture

Hey!
Quite a few people ask me about my background and what I'm about so
Today I've decided to explain one aspect of my life ...
My family originate from India from the western state of Gujarat from the coastal town of Jamnagar hence me being Gujarati and speaking it too.

A big part of Gujarati culture is their firm belief in god,the traditions and the vibrant festivals they celebrate,one of the most famous is called Navratri which is a celebration of nine night (Nav meaning 9 and Ratri meaning nights)


 Facts 

The festival is celebrated for nine nights once every year during the beginning of October, although as the dates of the festival are determined according to the lunar calendar, the festival may be held for a day more or a day less.

During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Shakti/Devi are worshiped. The 10th day is commonly referred to as Vijayadashami or "Dussehra." Navratri is a very important and major festival in the western state of Gujarat and Mumbai, during which the traditional folk dance of Gujarat called 'Garba' is widely performed.-Extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navratri

Navaratri is a festival in which God is adored as Mother. It is said that Shiva gave permission to Durga to see her mother for nine days in the year and this festival also remembers this visit. Families make an attempt to return home on these days, and leave on the tenth.Hinduism is the only religion in the world which has emphasised to such an extent the motherhood of God.

In Gujarat painted earthern pots with water or a lamp inside symbolise the power of the goddess.The flame symbolises everlasting divine power whilst the fluidwater is transitory.

An auspicious time

Aarti designs ©

Feasts of great variety and delicacy are offered to guests and family during the nine days.

For women, Navaratri is a time for shopping for new clothes and new pots. It is an auspicious time to buy gold or jewellery and the gold markets are open late each night. Women dress elaborately each day for the puja or rituals and nightly dances.

Another part of the puja may involve designing puja-thalis or aartis which are decorated plates in honour of the mother goddess, Amba (Ambika).-extract from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/holydays/navaratri.shtml

This is the bit for those of us who are quite creative to design aarti thali:)

The people of Gujarat live all over the world [including me!] therefore the vibrancy and culture is shared with rest of the world.All over the world navarati events are held by communities like mine whether that be the UK,US.Canada or anywhere! Something that is popular among university students and young people is to take part in garba competions [Amazing] so that they can connect with their heritage even though they aren't in Gujarat itself:)
Below is an example of these competions:

 This festival is celebrated
to banish the darkness form people lives
after which Diwali & the new year is celebrated to a new start. [according to the vikram samvat calendar we are currently in 2069]

(you don't have to read the next bit if you don't want to :])

A prayer that is often said around this time is : Yah devi sarva buthesu...
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu Vishnu-mayeti sadbita
Namas tasyai, Namas tasyai, Namas tasyai namo namah.
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu buddhi - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu nidra - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu ksudha - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu chhaya - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shakti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu trisna - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu ksanti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu lajja - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu shanti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu Sraddha - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu kanti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu lakshmi - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu vritti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu smriti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu daya - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu tusti - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …
Ya devi sarvabhuteshu matri - rupena samsthita, namas tasyai … … …

Which means....
To that goddess who abides in all beings as intelligence : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as sleep : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as hunger : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as reflection : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as power : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as thirst : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as forgiveness : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as modesty : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as peace : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as faith : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as loveliness : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as good fortune : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as activity : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as memory : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as compassion : Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as contentment ; Salutation to Thee, …
To that goddess who abides in all beings as mother : Salutation to Thee, …


On that festive note,Happy Navarati!
hope you guys have a safe and prosperous new year!
adios amigos

Ouch!.....Yawn :/....NOOO!

Hey!
So just got back from tuition and I thought I'd fill you guys in on what
has happened this week..:)

Well,Starting from the weekend I had loads of homework to do (sad ...I know),My Brother,Uncle and I have decided to go see James Bond Skyfall during the holidays which are literally round the corner yes! :D
really excited for that! It's coming out in the UK on the 26th October!

On the downside I strained my wrist on the train because I had to change so many  trains and there was no where to sit,It was really crowded and there were lots of delays due to "some engineering works" :( Thanks to that I had to trek around London for 2 hours for a journey which normally would be 30 minutes,I got very frustrated in the end but my mum made my day when I returned home at 9.00PM (London time) when she made fajitas,tacos, enchiladas and nachos mmm! yummy! This brought the smile on my face again :D


On Monday we had injections ouch! My arm still aches now. (: *sigh*I went home thinking that it was a Tuesday for some reason? I realised when my mum told me (what is up with me lately? really? I need to wake up and smell the coffee! ) I received a mountain of homework business and English mainly around 8:30 that night I fell asleep because I was feeling tired and drowsy.
At 3;00 am I woke up coughing and sneezing  and getting no sleep all night so this week I have felt slightly under the weather )':

Today, when I woke up my arm was numb and had lost feeling so my morning routine was a uphill struggle :(
I found out that my business course has changed so I felt annoyed after putting in so much effort (not fair!) In French we were assigned some prep for our upcoming controlled assessment... and in English I felt frustrated with my teacher because she was being really annoying.

If  i would describe my life in one word it would be as BUSY because i always have something to do everyday of the week even the weekends,my mum says that it is good to busy as a result your good at juggling thing in your life when your older :) 

I'm leaving you guys with a quote..:

You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. 
Sir Richard Branson 

Until next time adios amigos! :)

Happy European Day Of Languages!

Hello guys,

Today is the European day of languages (as mentioned above),

It is a celebration of languages not just European but all languages of the world!

As many of you may know I'm quite multilingual,my home languages are Gujarati and Hindi also because my grandparents lived in Kenya and Uganda for about 30 years so they can speak Swahili  hence my dad speaks a mixture of Gujarati and Swahili. 

My mum can also speak 5 languages if your curious which ones (Gujarati,Hindi, Urdu, English &Sanskrit [which is used in the Gita, it's the ancient language of India &{FACT}used for NASA encoding).
This gives you an idea of how big a part languages play in my life.

Currently I'm learning Gujarati which i will take for GCSE at a later stage and at school i'm learning French and German which i will also take for GCSE.

To get started I'm going to list the many ways I know how to say 

hello in other languages...

English-Hello

French-Bonjour

German-Guten tag

Hindi-Namaste

Urdu-Salaam

Russian-Privet

Swahili-Jambo

Spanish-Hola

Italian-buongiorno 

Sanskrit-namo namah

Gujarati-Jai shree krishna 

  British sign language

As my Home language,I'll teach you guys some phrases Gujarati!

Hello-Jai shree krishna,Ram Ram 

My name is -મારું નામ છે[ Maru nama  ..(name) che]

I am 13 years old -હું 13 વર્ષ જૂના છું (hu ther varus ni chu)

How are you?-Kem cho!

Bye-avajo!

Ok so i hope you guys learnt some Gujarati

now i will leave you with a language orientated well in another language, it 

Ai se eu te pego by Michel tego which featured in the eurovision contest.

So guys until next time adios amigo! (language Spanish!)

Jemini:)

જેમિની 

Summer Holidays!

I thought,I'd fill you guys in on what I did in the summer holidays in a rather new way which I wouldn't normally do,
A......Video!! It includes the début of my friends Radha & Jaimini and much,much more...
 so I hope you guys enjoy it!

Hope you guys enjoyed that and

until next time adios amigos :)

Passing time....

So Gujarati school has just ended and my mum has decided to go shopping whilst abandoning me in the car (thank god she took my brother or it would have been ww3,Phew !) 
It's week 3 since I joined finally made a friend,yes! (Her name's Riya) The pressures on as I have to pass an exam at diwali in order to go into the second year and swiftly move to the third year by July so working really hard:/
Moving on..
I've finally got the results for the science test,I have done well....and got into set 1 so now I can do triple award science for gcse! My mum is  getting me some books I wanted and shoes I want (endless collection of shoes alert!)
My advise to you guys for doing well in any test or exam is to see your and over come distractions,do everything by little mile stones and eventually you will be in touching distance of it:) (my mum says that if want truly,you will surely have it)
Another thing that my family believe is that god never say no he says either :
1)not now later
2)I have something even better for you so keep faith
So guys I hope guys take my advise and utilise it
Hope you guys,have a great weekend and until next time adios amigos

Guerilla Underground Signs

Today,
I've decided to do something different and that is not typically me,if you live in London and use the London underground ,then you may have seen signs like this:

         

                                                                   



Now I'm going to show you a twist on these normal and ordinary things you see....

Well ,there you go something  

there's some thing you wouldn't see everyday :)

Hope you guys have a great weekend! and until next time adios amigos! :)

Today..

Hey!
Well,I went swimming today like every Wednesday and I realized how tired I actually am but it still was fun and I messed around friend .
Also last week we had tested in science for set movements so this week, it has been a nervous wait for the results after been given hints by one of my teachers I am even more anxious. I hope I do well although I wouldn't mind doing double science,its good also :$
So next week we have injections on Thursday and also It's open evening at school oh poor me :d even though I'm excited and will do justice
To my school and the department that I'm representing.
I'm tired,anxious but looking forward to the week ahead so until
next time adios amigos :)

Below is a picture from the recent Olympic games in London.