There is this custom of writing the name of one's village, preceeding one's name, amongst the male members of my community, the GSBs. The husband follows this as did my father. But not my son.

 

Once two strangers get introduced to each other by name, the next question which immediately follows is, ' gaon khancho?' - meaning , which place / village/ town, do you belong to?

 

The husband's side of the family belong to Udyavara and we are the Udyavar Kamaths.

 

Udyavara is a village and a beautiful one. It is about 5 to 6 kms away from the town of Udupi. 

 

The village after Udyavara, is Kuthupady, my father's native village. And I belonged to the Kuthupady Hegde family, before the shaadi.

 

Udyavara boasts of a very famous Ayurvedic College, today.

 

The Ganapati temple there, is well known. Whenever we visited Kuthupady as children, we visited this temple. It made for a good outing in the evening, when we cousins, the parents, the uncles and aunts would walk to it.

 

 

The temple has a small tank outside. 

 

The silver idol is a very beautiful one.

 

The temple was also known for another very distinctive feature . The 'ruppyaa doni panchkadayi'.

 

Ruppey - meaning silver

Doni - meaning a boat

Panchkadayi or Panchkajayi - is the typical prasad made at most temples. It is usually made by mixing scraped coconut with jaggery and to this very moist mix, or slurry, is added some poha, some popped rice - लाही, and roasted black sesame seeds.

 

It was said that on some festival days, the Panchkadayi was mixed in this huge silver boat. The offerings to the Lord were made first and then it was distributed to the people who visited the temple that day.

 

On one not so fine a day, the silver boat was stolen.

 

Now a stainless steel boat stands in it's place, and it is now the Doni Panchkadayi, for which the temple is known for.

 

Adding a few pics to this post.