{"id":1012,"date":"2010-10-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/upon-waking-up-on-my-birthday\/"},"modified":"2010-10-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T00:00:00","slug":"upon-waking-up-on-my-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/upon-waking-up-on-my-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Upon Waking Up On My Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/kaulscorner.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Mummy-and-Me_Wondershare_Wondershare-300x236.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Above Picture: Me, at about the age of two, with my mother, Aruna Kaul Karihaloo, in Srinagar, Kashmir.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I woke up on my birthday to find out when the guruji will arrive,<br \/>To perform the pooja invoking the Gods for my well being.<br \/>I waited for the refreshing rub of a new shirt<br \/>And the gastronomical seduction of tahar and charvan.<br \/>The dignifying touch of a tilak was missing,<br \/>So was the mysterious bond of a narivan.<br \/>All of these are now interesting relics in the museum of time.<br \/>Most of us did not understand then,<br \/>And even now, what these sanctified trappings were for.<br \/>But we felt we were being connected to something larger than us,<br \/>Something within us but beyond the ordinary reach.<br \/>Every age has its rituals but birthdays will always have the same message:<br \/>To celebrate life and to feel its miracle.<\/p>\n<p>Translation of Hindi words:<\/p>\n<p>guruji: priest<\/p>\n<p>pooja: religious ceremony<\/p>\n<p>tahar: salted yellow rice, which must be served with yogurt after the ceremony<\/p>\n<p>charvan: goat or lamb liver cooked as a hot, spicy curry<\/p>\n<p>tilak: a vermilion paste mark on the forehead, between the eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Bears high religious connections<\/p>\n<p>Narivan: a red and white twisted cotton thread tied on the wrist by<\/p>\n<p>the priest after the ceremony. Religious connection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Above Picture: Me, at about the age of two, with my mother, Aruna Kaul Karihaloo, in Srinagar, Kashmir. \u00a0 I woke up on my birthday to find out when the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-poems"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stagingserver3.com\/Maharaj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}