My Upanayanam

Today was my upanayanam and it started as early as 5:00 in the morning. More about it I will be putting in later here. There are a few incidents attached with the new digital camera but on the overall basis I was able to cover the entire Upanayanam in the photographs. A Few glimpses of the Upanayanam are put on the blog in the form of photographs.

The entire ceremony and the rituals for the upanayanam began a day before on tuesday. It started at 5:30 pm on 10th of May 2005, tuesday. Tuesday as we all know is also the day of hanuman. Since the place which is the Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, in Skandagiri is very famous for its Hanuman Temple, they give lot of emphasis on tuesdays. The pooja started with the Kul devtaa sthapan which is always the first in any pooja. Thereafter ganesh pooja was carried out since that is done before beginning any good work. Afterwards the shanthi pooja is carried out to ensure shanthi in the household. This marks the end of the first day on tuesday. We had to do fast on that day and hence we had only pongal that night.

The next day begin as early as 5:00 in the morning for us. After taking bath I wore the dhoti or panchaa as we call it in telugu and then angavastram on the top. We reached the venue by 6:15 am and by that time all the arrangements were being made. By 6:55 am all the people were there and the proceedings began at that time.

Thereafter the pooja went uptil 10:20 am wherein once I had the haircut and then took bath also after that. I had the tiffin in the process. We had invited only our close relatives since it was a closed function. The lunch began at 11:00 am and we winded up the entire proceedings by 1:00 pm.

It was a great feeling for my mother and me since she was waiting to do my upanayanama for a long time but my busy schedule whether in TAPMI or in engineering was not allowing her to do that.

Next step after the upanayanam is the sandhya vandanam which is absolutely essential for a brahmachari to do. I did sandhya vandanamwith the help of my dad in the evening and since it is the first time and no one knows in our house how to do it it did not come properly.

Night we went to the house of one of our relatives. Mr Tirumal Rao. He is an expert in sandhya vandanam and perhaps he was the person I was looking for. More on how the sandhya vandanam is done in the next entry.