Navarathri is a 10 day festival celebrated in India.This celebration is meant for ladies and girls basically. The number of steps to be set up is 3 ,5 ,7, 9 or 11 and these steps are filled with clay dolls. It's the perfect time to dress up and visit friends and family .
My memories of navarathri will be this way . In our house my mother normally keeps a small golu.But there are few houses in our village who keep 9 and 11 steps . Myself ,my brother and my sister used to go to everybody's house for the bakshanam . All the 10 days sundal( snack) is what we eat for dinner and sleep .
'Bommakol bakshanam mamiya patha lakshanam' is our funny way of asking bakshanam . Crazy isn't it ?But when we think of it now it's beautiful. I wish my daughter also enjoyed these type of times in life .
These days,I see many keeping theme based golu,handmade dolls golu and paper mache dolls golu .I am not a bug fan of these ones . I like the clay dolls traditional golu though few dolls will be added as I keep it for my daughter to enjoy like park ,zoo etc .These days nobody is going to others house for the bakshanam. Rarely they visit for a day just for formality as they have invited .There are so many changes happened around in the culture . I wish it was like before . These days it's all modern but I am trying to keep a traditional golu of 3 or 5 steps this year and invite atleast 2 or 3 flat members next door .
Do you celebrate Navarathri ?
What are your childhood memories of this festival?
What type of golu do you like ?
Post in your thoughts .
My grandmother used to keep golu and it was only from 2011, after she came back with many dolls from her few north Indian trips, that inspired her to arrange it as a golu and later she added more of her handcrafts. But before that and during our childhood the parents used to take us to his cousin's house to see golu. They used to devote an entire room for the golu and give sundal to eat and sometimes we also finish our dinner there what we can't avoid due to their love.
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful scene . Yes most of us 10 days dinner Sundal only :)
DeleteSounds like a grand time.
ReplyDeleteYes Liz it's a very colourful and busy time
DeleteWhat I like about Navarathri is eating sundal all 10 days. One funny thing is on Saraswathi Pooja day, we put all out books near Goddess and don't read that day. We read the next day.
ReplyDeleteYes we too do the same . Trying to control not reading is the fun part . Jolly days
Delete'Navaratri' is indeed a devout festival. In our village we kept the books for pooja on the eighth day(Durgashtami) and read them after the rituals of taking them from the Poojaroom on Vijayadashami day. Golu is really mesmerizing. I liked the post,Shilpa.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot
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