Mahasivaratri F(e)asting

I have never seen people wishing 'Happy Mahasivaratri'. So, I am not going to do that. But, I wish that The Lord bless all of you and your families.
People who like to know more about Mahasivaratri, check here and here.
Leaving the religious part apart, the things which are related to shivaratri (for me) are f(e)asting and the jagarane / jagaram part (staying awake all night).

Coming to jagarane part, I don't know whether this custom is celebrated through out India. It is celebrated in Andhra & Karnataka. When we were kids, I always wanted to stay awake at least till morning. The funny part is that I used to feel sleepy earlier than usual on that particular day. Only one time, I could stay awake till 4.30 in the morning and fell asleep in the living room. When my sister was in 7th grade, she invited a bunch of her friends for a "Jagarane Night" at our place. Even though, I was five years older to them, I was welcome in their party. I guess, they primarily invited me to be their watch dog. My mom gave some snacks for us and went to sleep. They ate the snack, played some games and watched a religious movie on TV. Soon everybody were falling asleep. By 1 a.m , every body were knocked out except me. It seems very funny now. I am damn sure this story repeats every year at some one's house in India. Though not for religious purposes or attaining good karma, kids do attempt to stay awake on this night. It's adventurous and challenging to them. They want to show their friends that they can do this. I am just curious to know how many of us have not tried to stay awake at least once on a shivarathri night.
Now fasting / feasting part. My mom is very religious and so does a strict fasting on this day. Whereas my in laws follow another method of fasting which I always joke about. (Hope no one from our family is reading this). They restrain from eating rice this day and eat all delicious breakfast dishes like idli etc and call this fasting. I did not want to fall behind in following family traditions. I am a part of Gandlur family now. Instead of fasting part, I did the feasting part. Today, we had idlis, cornmeal dosas and cornmeal halwa which have been posted here earlier.


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