Published Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Baby Shower Keeps Indian Traditions Alive

             Shetal Padia looked around her pregnant belly and set one foot gingerly on the white cloth laid out in her parents’ family room. Laid out on the cloth were dark green betel leaves, pink flower petals and betel nuts to mark the path her five footsteps would take as part of her symbolic walk to motherhood. The deep red kumkum paste on the pads of her feet made imprints on the white cloth.

            Shetal’s walk was heavy with symbolism. The five steps symbolized the five sense organs, the red paste stood for power and prosperity and the white cloth for purity.

            Shetal, an endocrinologist in Charlottesville, Virginia, is excited about her first child, due on March 8. Her parents, Harshadray and Nisha Padia of Cary, are excited, too, and held a baby shower weekend on February 3 and 4 to celebrate the upcoming birth. Baby blessings are given in the fifth or seventh month because the Indian culture sees this as a time when the womb can receive outside influences.

            Before the baby blessing ceremony began, Shetal stood in the Padia family room in front of a warm fire, looking out the large plate-glass windows at the sun reflecting off the lake and talking to family friends dressed in colorful saris.

            “I think I’m the only cold pregnant person I know,” she said, laughing. Her husband, Todd Wolf, an oncologist, patted her belly and jokingly called it a basketball. “It’s a baby, not a basketball!” Shetal laughed back.

            Nearby on the kitchen island, family friends Geeta Patel and Rohini Joshi prepared a plate of ceremonial plants and foods, including betel leaves (called ban), betel nuts, white dates, a coconut, rice, moong beans, dharo (grass), kumkum paste and a gold bracelet for Shetal.

            When cousins, uncles and family friends had assembled, mother Nisha led the group to the front of the house. The wooden threshold, known as umbhro, had been decorated with rice and kumkum paste to welcome the unborn child. Shetal, Wolf, cousin Reema Padia and family friend Radhika Patel gathered outside the door for photos and then stepped gently over the wooden entryway to begin the ceremony.

            After Shetal made her red footprints on the white cloth, she sat on a chair, and part of her hot pink sari was pulled up over her hair and pinned to make a veil.

            Next, Shetal held out part of her sari like an apron. Family friend Rohini Joshi took the ceremonial foods and plants from the plate and filled the apron, symbolizing health, prosperity and the family’s gene transfer from one generation to the next.

            “Rohini did this for me when I was pregnant with Shetal,” Nisha Padia said with a smile. “It is special that she is doing it for Shetal now, too.”

            The assembled women hugged Shetal, and the group, including Wolf and Shetal’s father, Harshadray, moved into the house’s temple room. All sang and clapped, and a ceremonial plate with a candle called an aarti, passed from the soon-to-be parents to friends, offered prayers to the Gods. At the end of the blessing, each guest was offered a scoop of shiro, a sweet concoction of wheat, milk, sugar and ghee.

            The smiling family and friends then gathered in the family room and dining room for a luncheon, as colorful and varied as the guests’ clothing. Talk turned to Gandhi and Nehru and Indian politics and history as people ate from large round plates with several sections.

The catered traditional Indian fare consisted of fruit salad, okra and potatoes, lentils, peas with cabbage, halva (a sweet treat made of a squash-like gourd), cucumber and tomatoes, spicy peppers and rice. Unlike traditional Western meals, the sweet dishes are meant to be eaten along with the savory, not left for dessert.

            Shetal reflected on what she wanted for her baby to know about Indian culture. “We want constant exposure for our baby to both cultures,” said Shetal. “My parents have written things down for her… I know if they don’t tell me now, it will be lost. It’s so important to carry it forward.”

            Wolf, who grew up in the Midwest, agreed. “Being Indian is a big part of who Shetal is. I didn’t grow up with that kind of tradition, and it’s interesting to me.”

The blessings for Shetal and Todd’s baby were to continue the next day. Nisha had prepared a large room downstairs for a scrap-booking baby shower. Each guest at the shower       was to prepare a scrapbook page representing an event or holiday within the first year of the baby’s life.

A piece of the white ceremonial cloth with Shetal’s red footprint will decorate one of the pages. And someday soon, maybe a tiny baby girl footprint will take its place in the scrapbook, too.