The Jai Jais Blog

Lord Krishna is  the eighth avatar of Vishnu and is one of the most widely known deities in Hinduism. Krishna is depicted in a variety of forms because there are so many stories surrounding him. The most common story describes Krishna as a divine lover who plays the flute. Krishna. Krishna is the central character in the epic Mahabharata, the epic story including many of topics such as war, love, brotherhood, and politics. It is essentially the story of two warring groups of cousin brothers, the Pandavas and the Kaurvas. Krishna was the charioteer to Arjun in the battlefield.  The famous poem, the Bhagavat Gita, is spoken by Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield. 

The holy Hindu festival of ‘Nori Nem’ (*some people have variations of the name and spelling), is celebrated in Gujarat, India.  The fast is observed by a group of women living closely in their neighbourhood. It is celebrated by women for the health and well-being of their children.   “Nori” (Norio), means ‘Mongoose’. “Nem” means ‘ninth’.  The day is celebrated on the ninth day of the holy month of Shravan.

On the day of Nori Nem, after bathing women dress in nice colourful clothes, to commence the ‘Nori Nem’ Pooja.  To celebrate the festival they cook a simple meal.  They cook five or seven sprouted beans (the beans have been pre-soaked and sprouted a couple of days before), this is known as “vadhu” in Gujarati.  This is served with a millet chapati known as “rotlo”, and milk.

So recently we were having our dinner, and my youngest Dhiyan aged 4 said to me…”Mummy why is it when we have Indian food we eat with our hands and when we eat other types of food we use spoons, knives and forks!!”. Good question when I am telling him to use a fork to eat his spaghetti, yet when having roti and rice and curry at home he happily eats with his hands!.

So off course I had to explore this questions The Jai Jais way…. Why do we eat with our hands?