The Beginning of My Ri"c"e

The advice these days is to give the baby only breast milk for the first 6 months and to introduce supplements and/or normal diet elements only after the 6th month.

Among us malayalees the initiation to "grown-up" food is marked by a small function called the chor oonu (chor meaning rice (not surprisingly) and oonu meaning meal/to eat).

Sid had his chor oonu on 18th Sept, 2010 at the Pathmanabha Swami Temple in Trivandrum and the best part about the function was that his Dada could attend, purely unexpectedly.

For this function the priests bring some rice, salted pickled raw mango, one sabzi and some payasam (a malayali sweet preparation) on a banana leaf. The function is organised near the entrance to the main shrine next to the 'kodimaram' (the golden flag post) where the area to be seated at is earmarked by a different carved stone. Sid sat on his paternal grandpa's lap, facing the direction of the idol and his grandpa was asked to take a little of rice, mango and sabzi, paste them together and touch this paste to Sids tongue thrice. This was followed by giving him the payasam. The intention is to introduce him to all the tastes - salty, sour, bitter, hot and finally sweet.

Though normally kids are known to holler at this first taste of sour/bitter, Sid in his usual style, managed a pretty cool exterior during most of it. There was a little whimpering to the mango pickle which vanished when he got the payasam. I think of the two little teeth he got, atleast one is definitely sweet.

Then we had a long queue to wait in before we could get a darshan and finally home. Though this is normally a small close knit function only attended by the parents and grandparents, Dada's folks decided to throw a small family get-together and hence we all had lunch at P's place. It was, of course, more rice for us.

P.S Dada had also ordered a liter of "paal" (milk) payasam from the temple, and let me tell you, it is really one of the best payasams I have had. For someone who is not very fond of payasams, I had multiple helpings that day. So if you get a chance, do try to have some from there.