festivus for the rest of us (or what/why you ate today)

[Subbarao Kambhampati <rao@parichaalak.eas.asu.edu>]

The festival is Deepavali (the "dee" to be pronounced as
"thee")--which is a very popular a festival of lights in India. It is
celebrated on a new moon day (which it is today) in late october/early
november (being a festival celebtrated by lunar calendar, its
placement on solar calendar varies from year to year).

In addition to eating a whole lot, and dressing up, the main activity
on the deepawali day is the evening fireworks.  In the evening all
houses are decorated with "deep" (or earthen lamps, thus the name),
and kids of all ages light up country fireworks in front of their
homes (thus creating the perfect vision of hell for the local fire
department ;-).  It is one festival that is celebrated pretty much
across India.  (Its historical importance also includes the fact that
my son was born on a deepawali night.)

The stuff you ate are:

 Laddu (the spherical ones) 
 Mysorepak (the rectangualar ones)

Both are made of lentil flour (a specific type of lentils called
"chana") and sugar. Both sweets are popular in several parts of India
(with the noted exception of Bengal--my wife would not touch a sweet
unless it is made with milk).  The salty thing is a generic salty
cracker--again made with lentil flour.

My father can make both of them at home. I am quite familiar, in
general outlines at least, with the theory of how to make them. Have
no implementation background though.  In this particular case, my only
"toils" involved waiting over at The Muse with an espresso this
morning, until the Indian sweet store nearby ("Kohinoor" on the
intersection of Lemon and Terrace; who make them on the premises)
opened. 


Happy Deepawali!

rao
[Nov  4, 2002]

ps: Other references today
 
Donald Knuth's request for CS researcher's names in non-latin
alphabet:

  http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/help.html