Ladoos Part II: Analysing The Perfect Taste

DISCLAIMER: This is a blog on Krishna, and it remains a blog on Krishna.But, His ladoos are impossibly irresistible. Ofcourse, the fact that we are analysing "His Prasad" talks volumes, not of our culinary skills, but rather, of how much we are in love with Him- and His food.
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It's midnight...

i am having a snack...

Yes, i have been talkng of tirupati Balaji for a while now.
Thanks to a dear, new friend who has been constantly singing His praises.

And my dear Srinivasa, made my dad spring an "unexpected", out-of-the-blue trip to Tirupati.
And quite expectedly, i am now with laddu/ladoo in my hands.

So, i began analysing the taste.
What is the special ingredient that makes it worthy of an ISI mark?
Definitely more than nus, ghee, flour, sugar, jaggery....
ingredients:
1) The devotees' love in painstakingly making these ladoos
2) The devotees' minds which yearn for these ladoos, and the Lord's eagerness to quench their thirst
3) The devotees' desire to parcel it and send it to as many people as possible
And other such ingredients.....

Aandal aka kothai (a famous Tamil poet who sang about Krishna and married Him) says in Tirupaavai (Tamil)
"Koodi irundhu kulirndhelor empaavay!"
"Come, gather together [have prasad] (she tells Krishna) (with your devotees) and be cooled in your minds!"

Ofcourse, Aandal meant a speciality dish called "Akkara adisal" which, in its French version, may be tiramisu. (Is tiramisu French or Italian?)


But, the picture shows them giving Him laddus.

And, this song is the REASON why laddu is soooo special to me.
1) Because He touched it with His hands
2) Because, somewhere in that nut-ball, hidden is the sweet nectar of His honey-dew lips, when He had touched those laddoos to His mouth
3) Because, His hands are more eager to give the ladoos to us than to take them Himself
4) Because, as i sit eating His ladoos, i know HE IS WATCHING with a smile

To a surrendered slave, a besotten lover, by this respect, even the mud-ball He ate as a kid would taste like Amrita, actually it IS greater than Amrita...
But would we have our dear Krishna eat mud-balls?????
No, no, no, !!!
He is entitled to the tastiest of dishes, and delicacies.
And, we shall serve Him that He has none less than the perfect!! :)

P.S: Back to the title, what is the receipe?? His greatness, His love, His mercy, and His infinite number of qualities make that ladoo irresisitible. THE ONLY WAY U R GETTING IT RIGHT IS BY FALLING AT HIS BEAUTIFUL FEET! There is no other way!!!!

Sweet Ladoos from my Govindhan!

This is my first post here in this group blog. Am glad I was invited to it. Thanks to all:-)
Am here very far away from my very favorite T -Nagar perumal koil & of course Tirupati. I miss my Govindha too much here....Its miserable that I don't get to see him in his full alankaram(lovely decorations) nevertheless everyday so many times I think about one special moment which happened in Tirupati 1 & half years ago when I got married. Well, there were several wonderful moments in my life with my Govindhan...oh lovely perumal...What to say about his love & grace??
I would like to share about that special day....

In my In-laws' custom, whenever somebody gets newly married, they book Kalyana Urchavam for perumal in Tirupati. I was so excited & thrilled about going to Tirupati to see my athma purushan. We were supposed to be there by 10.30 or 11 am I guess..but unfortunately our train got delayed for about an hour so we couldn't make it to the Urchavam bcoz the kalyana urchavam had already commenced by then and the security couldn't allow us. Well..., it was jam-packed. Hence we were directed to the general darshan after having to skip the urchavam. Honestly speaking I didn't feel bad because I was all thrilled about getting to see him(ya the darshan) I never took that incident to be a bad sign or nothing of that sort because I always knew that HE LOVES me(only with his grace) but while we were in our queue, one of my relatives looked at me and told me..."Perhaps U do not have the luck to see Perumal!". I Just smiled and never replied back neither did I feel bad. Yes again I knew that can't be it.....as several times I have experienced his lovely expression of love which has always been my life no matter what happens in my wordily life.
                                            I completely forgot about all such happenings & conversations and We were blessed with his lovely darshan. Now, it was time for us to buy the ladoos. We had our urchava tickets with us plus we had our darshan tickets yet not even a single counter offered us ladoo.....ya believe me....we asked each & every counter there and the answer was, "sorry no ladoos!" can anybody believe this?? We were the only ones who were deprived of having ladoos in the ladoo counter and rest of the folks got it...what was shocking was that we never got any reasons for not getting ladoos from the counter. just "sorry no ladoos!" Nobody would believe this that easily...we tried hard, stood in queue but just our family alone never got the ladoos......Everybody started panicking ....I was a new DIL & everybody looked at me sooooo differently and they started whispering to each other..."We have been to Tirupati and never such incidents had taken place to us"......I was still glad and calm because I can NEVER ever think about perumal in such a note....u know like, maybe he is punishing or nothing of that sort. Ya I can never be pessimistic about his love & grace (with his kind mercy) I don't care what others say to me.....Perumal loves me(like he does everybody) and I know that. Even if we were to be thrown out of Tirupati I wouldn't & cannot suspect his love and grace. However I was amazed at such strange happenings. Then finally we got to another ladoo counter wherein the gentleman incharge redirected us to the main entrance of the temple. He requested us to get ladoos from the security counter there in the main entrance of the temple. Can anybody believe this??? The ladoo counter was offering ladoos to everybody but to us alone he had us redirected to the security.... We were bewildered & we started discussing saying, "WHAT? How come??? In ladoo counter they denied to offer ladoos and how come in the security counter are they going to offer ladoos?" alright anyway as directed we (just the 4 of us ) went to the security counter and hesitantly requested for ladoos. The security immediately called a young boy and requested him to bring us ladoos. The boy ran to fetch ladoos...we waited ..waited and waited...the boy never returned....and LO!!!!!!!!!!! The Urchava moorthy (my sweeeeeet perumal) with his ever beautiful thaayar came there right in front of us with all mangala vadhyam(divine instruments). We got to see him soooooooooo close.....It wasn't crowded AT ALL there except for the people who brought the Urchava morthy & thaayar there. It was kind of an exclusive darshan. I just forgot everything and ran along with the Urchava moorthy till how much ever I could...crying in love .....calling out "Govindha...Govindha...Govindha...." Wow!!!! That moment was soooooooo special not because he proved my relatives to be wrong about me not being lucky to see perumal.....I don't care about all that(yet perumal cared for everything) That moment was so special because I could see and feel his love again (as ever)...Imagine if we had got our ladoos in the ladoo counter itself we wouldn't have seen perumal because that lies in a different corner all together. It was ALL his play.... his wonderful and lovely game. After having a wonderful darshan of Urchava moorthy that young boy came running with covers of huge and delicious ladoos
I Love my Govindha ......

Even now after singing my routine bhajans, I was looking at his images in my PC, my husband was commenting very kindly though "can U not think about anything else other than HIM?" what to say??? I just smiled:-)) But ya I cannot and would not want to think, dream, aspire, crave, laugh, cry..for anything else other than HIS love.

Love U Narayana! EVER...

The Story of Meera

There were two kinds of women in Vrindavan: those who were born there and those who came there in marriage.
While Radha was a Vrajavasi, there was a girl was from Mathura.
She came to Vrindavan as a new bride.
Her friends had already been teasing her that she would lose herself to the famous blue-complexioned boy, but she had laughed it off.

She had come to Vrindavan to make it her home.
But, she saw no homes there.
When she went, she saw not the splendor of Vraj, but utter disaster.
It was raining incessantly. There were dilapidated ruins of houses all around her. Trees were falling.
And, there were none around her.
Such appalling sights for a new bride!
And then she saw!
A mountain hanging in mid-air!
Amazed, she went to see what it was/
And there she saw, a blue-complexioned boy, with peacock feathers in His hair, wearing a yellow garment, His hands bearing the large mountain almost lazily by the pinky.
She saw the whole village crowded around His feet, staring at Him with happiness.

Then she realized-there were no houses in Vraj, but they had found the truest shelter.
And, she lost herself to Him that very minute.
And, as she stood dumbstruck, He invited her with His eyes, smiling.
But, just then, a stroke of lightning struck her.
She died instantly, the thoughts of Giridhari in her head, and her eyes, and her heart.
i have read that it was this girl who was born as Meera.
She always sang about Giridhari, in all her songs.
This is why.
Coz the reason of her birth was her intense longing for Giridhari. :)

Ek neermohi

To understand this bhajan/song you have to first understand this scenario:

It is about a girl who is new in Vrindavan and has very vague knowledge about krishna. But with all the encounters that she has so far with krishna ,she definitely knows that he had left her wandering in the forest of his mesmerising beauty and love. She was in love with him, And there she was conversing about her little love story with her brother. She sings the tale of how she meets Krishna, , how she finally realises who He is and how he becomes hers :) :)
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female: Ek Neermohi mera dil legaya,

jaate jaate mujhe ganhe sukh de gaya.

male: Kaun Neermohi tera dil legaya?
Sanwala roop jiska tujhe bhaa-gaya

female : Yamuna ke tat par mila sanwariya,
Nanda pita uske, Yashoda maiya...yashoda maiya
Dhenu charake ,bansi bajake, mann ke suro ko chori kargaya!
Ek neermohi mera dil . . .

Gopiyo dekhe jiska darpan
Raas rache woh harr upvann vann...harr upvann vann
Raas rachane aaya rasiya, radha samaj ke mujhe legaya!
Ek Neermohi . . .

Soch mein behthi thi mein vyaakul
Tub aaya ghar milne woh baabul...milne woh baabul
Haath manga bandhan jodha, janmo ke liye woh mera hogaya!!!
Ek Neermohi . . .


male: Kaun Neermohi tera dil legaya?
Sanwala roop jiska tujhe bhaa-gaya

female: Kaun Neermohi mein jaan gayi,
Usko jaana toh sab, bhool gayi..............
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"sangam" song krishna version

I was watching tv and this song came up.Almost immediately I related it to Krishna and gave it my words.The song is from the movie , 'sangam' pictured on raj kapoor. Here goes my version:

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Meri mann ki ganga aur teri mann ki yamuna ka,
Bol Kanha bol, sangam hoga ke nahi?
Meri mann ki ganga . . .

Kitni sadiyaan bit gayi hai, haaye tujhe rijaa ne mein
Ab to daya kar Narayan mujhe, lele tu panhaawo mein,
meri atma ka aur teri paramatma ka,
Bol kanha bol, sangam hoga ke nahi?
Meri mann ki ganga . . .

Iss mayaavi duniya mein bolo, kya rakha hai jeene mein
Tujhse milan na hota ho to, kya rakha hai marne mein?
Mere vyakul pran aur tere vaikunth dhaam ka,
Bol kanha bol, sangam hoga ke nahi?
Meri mann ki ganga . . .
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(very short and not too wow...but I thought i did put it anyway) :)