Fruit is also served along with various sweet dishes including Roat (which is basically sweet deep fried roti with cherries and raisins inside). The ceremony ends with food – 7 curries – all vegetarian and delicious on top of rice served in a lily pad: balange (eggplant), pumpkin, bagee (spinach), catahar, potato/channa (chickpeas), edoe, and dahl. Several flags are blessed and then placed in front of the home. Especially with the host mom, after watching her labor in preparations for days there was something satisfying in seeing her replenished by the ceremony. It was obvious this brought them together and made me feel closer to them. Watching the family experience these elements together was really touching. It is filled with prayer, scripture in what sounded like songs (sometimes accompanied by a gong or conch she’ll trumpet), and offerings. This morning the Pandit (Hindu priest/preacher/ rabbi equivalent) and his wife arrived to conduct the ceremony.The ceremony can last anywhere from an hour to days. The hosting husband/dad of the house prepares by making the space available, as seen below you need a large open space where you can sit on the floor. But this is not when the preparation began.įor the last several days the wife/mom who will be hosting the Jhandi prepare’s dozens of foods, unpacks and readies the ceremonial dishes, clears the house of any animal products, etc. I was fortunate enough to be able to observe one of these celebrations this morning. People sponsor the celebration in their local Mandir, but most frequently it is performed in their homes. They happen several times per year and are traditional when moving into a house (or completing building one) or celebrating something similar. They recognize multiple of their gods in thanksgiving, today seemed with a focus on Hanuman, Shiva, Ganesh, and Lakshmi. The Jhandi is a time of thanksgiving for family and sometimes friends, bringing them together in unity.
Jhandi is a Hindu celebration practiced primarily in Caribbean countries such as Guyana (and Trinadad). This post is simply about the ceremony I observed and for ease of conversation, I will be referring to it as Jhandi throughout the rest of this post. The same (or similar) ceremony can be done under several different names and Jhandi can sometimes be used to refer to a different ceremony.
The ceremony I’m about to describe is commonly referred to as the Jhandi in this area, also referred to as 7 Curry.
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