First Mottai at Tirupati Temple

After many months of deliberations based on the dates suggested by Georgian, Victorian, Tamilian, Google, Flight and What-Not Calendars, we finally ended up at Tirupati for Akshara’s first mottai/Tonsure of head/Mundan/haircut. We were in for some royal treatment, thanks to some high-profile connections. So, the barber came over to our room rather than we going to the common area for the mottai. Akshara had witnessed Laya’s (her cousin) mottai and after having seen what Laya went through, she was very clearly not interested in the whole thing. But, after explaining her the benefits of a haircut (e.g. you get loooooong hair) and many such fictional stories, she was “ok” with the idea and was eager (presumably) for her first mottai.

But, it was much smoother than expected, thanks to modern technology. We showed a video of Laya speaking/singing a rhyme and Akshara thought that she was having a video conversation with her and got distracted. The mottai was done and Akshara was happy about it to the extent that she didn’t want to have a head-bath as she felt that the “mottai” would go away!

Her hairless condition meant that she could get ready at a moment’s notice to go out 🙂

Couple of weeks back, orbis school had organised a fancy dress event with the theme being “A community helper”, which incidentally was one of the themes in Tree House last year, when she went dressed up as a police woman/security guard. This year, she dressed up as a Dhobi/Laundry Wala, which kind of blended with her current hairstyle (or the lack of it).