Us Indians have figured out a way to celebrate pretty much any and every time we get a chance. Here’s one for the keeps..
The break of dawn on September 19th, marked the arrival of the festival of lights called navrathri. Navrathri is a festival celebrated by hindus, approximately during the beginning of every autumn season. Its another lunar calender derivation that I don’t completely understand yet. Anyway… in tamil, “Nav” means 9 and “rathri” means nights…and hence its the 9 nights festival.
I’m sitting here in Canada relatively void to many of the festivities. Don’t get me wrong, my family does celebrate it to the best of their abilities, but it is obviously very different from being in India with other family and friends. So…I do try to live vicariously through stories from my family back in India… and I’ll tell you, jealousy doesn’t take very long to settle in…
In India, as soon as dusk hits, the streets light up brighter than they were lit during the day. There is a vibrancy about the place that can only possibly be paralleled by a summer night in Vegas. It is a pretty spectacular feeling just imagining and putting yourself amongst that vigor and excitement.
The best part of these festivities is setting up ‘gollu’. Gollu is the arrangement of toys, dolls, idols and all small decors on a stepped show stand. To grasp the excitement that succumbs this tradition…think of how you may feel when you decorate your x-mas tree every winter. Its kinda the same, just without the tree…okay may be its not all that similar but you get the idea.
Well there you have it..a little taste of what navrathri is all about…the rest, I will have to leave to your imagination or hopefully your experiences in the future..
Cheers
