AYUSHA HOMAM AT THE HOME OF RADHA AND NAREN BALASUBRAMANIAM, APRIL 8

The morning of April 8, 2008 was barely warm enough to remind Detroiters that springtime is just around the corner, but For Sathvik N Nath, the day held considerably more promise—though he is too young to realize it.  It was his first birthday, and in traditional Hindu fashion, the monumentous occasion was celebrated by the ritual of Ayusha Homam, also known as ‘star birthday’, meant to insure his long life and prosperity.

In general, Hindus celebrate according to the Hindu Lunar calendar, the Panchang,  and birthdays are celebrated according to the Hindu month, the birth star, the moon’s waning or waxing.

In their beautifully decorated Canton home, Sathvik’s parents, Radha and Naren Balasubramaniam had engaged their friend and family priest, Shri Shivakumar Bhat, Shastriji of the Hindu Temple of Canton to conduct the ceremony.  In what to our Western eyes were an amazingly complex and beautiful series of movements and Vedic verses, the Homam consisted of many symbolic rituals in which offerings were made into a consecrated fire.  Chants were made, invoking the auspicious of various Gods and Goddess, and both Naren (barechested in a silk dhoti) and Radha in a beautiful apricot and gold sari, participated fully in the ceremony.  Radha sat at Naren’s right hand, because, he joked, “She is always right.”

In ways, it is this gentle humor in the midst of sacred worship and deep Hindu faith that makes Naren and Radha, as well as the rest of the Indian community, very easy to approach on a human level.  Perhaps it is the Hindu faith that allows such fast friendships to be made, or perhaps the blessings from Ayur Devatha, which the homam requests, has indeed worked marvelous things on the spirits of the Indian people.  Whatever the reason, it has been the great honor of Visionalist to have been allowed to see these ceremonies up close.

The core of the Ayusha Homam ceremony is family, and also there to celebrate the first birthday of Sathvik were the other two Balasubramaniam boys, Siddharth and Shreyas.  Radha’s cousin Vidhya along with her in-laws Geetha Kantharaj, Maya Kiran Kumar, Susheela Kumaravel, Aunt Avuna, neighbor and family friends Mahathi and Venu Bairisetti.