'The Journey of Life', Navarathri Theme Golu, uploaded Oct 2015, Barbie Ken 2 day wedding, .
This idea of converting Barbie-Ken dolls, "Indian"izing them, re-purposing them to become characters in a wedding ritual display in a Golu is my very original idea. My video has set the trend for many wedding vendors, independent crafters and hobbyists to pick up this idea - to customize rubber dolls and convert them to wedding ritual scenes, festivals scenes, village scenes, etc. Such displays as shared in this video are now popular in wedding venues, esp. in Southern India where the weddings are filled with many custom rituals.
Violin for video (my 9 year old):
1. Sharadhe Karunanidhe (Ragam: Hamir Kalyani)
2. Brochevarevare (Ragam: Sri Ranjani, Tyagaraja kriti)
3. Mangalam Vara hRishyaSringa (Ragam: Suruti)
Lyrics for 1 and 3, composed by Sri Chandrashekhara Bharati Swamigal of Shringeri, music set by Violinist Sri. R. K. Shriram Kumar.
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My golu's theme:
My golu's theme and message is about how we can continue the journey of our life that is well within our control, and the cards that will define who we are...
Abstract for the theme, 'The Journey of Life':
The journey of a life of a couple is captured from the time since their parents work to get them married, their meet over coffee/dinner, their engagement, their 2 day traditional wedding brought to life. This is followed by the eventual pregnancy (Valaikaapu-Seemandham), child birth (Naamakaranam), and midlife parenthood of sending their kids to school. The couple also work to support Autism Research and encourage their children to raise funds for Autism.
Into our Wedding Theme Golu, we incorporated a model of the famous Thirumanancheri Temple, near Mayiladuthurai, more popularly known as the temple for marriage prayer.
Women make a trip to Thirumanancheri to pray for a spouse,
Married couples pray for a happy married life,
Married women pray to Raaghu Bhagawan at Thirumanancheri to have a child soon,
Our prayers are never ending...
Our needs and wants in life are never ending...
Life is a perennial rat race...
We control the effort for everything we do in life...
Our effort should be honest, wholesome and genuine...
We don't control the outcome of our efforts...
We don't control the cards we are dealt with...(**)
But we do control how well we play our hand....(**)
And we should play our hand (or, continue the journey of our life) - with such values as honesty, integrity, compassion, kindness, and, fair-play....every single day...
(**) Quotes taken from Prof. Randy Pausch's 'The Last Lecture'.
A video and a transcript of his very inspiring lecture can be found here:
• Randy Pausch Last Lect...
www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/p...