Navarathiri!!! A festival which always brings lots and lots of excitment because it is the only festival which we celebrate for almost ten days. This time for the first time in I managed to keep nine steps. And especially I made our daughter who is only 2 years old also to pariticpate in the keeping and arranging of dolls. Later it was nine tough days to make sure that she doesnt touch those dolls or touch the lamps lighted.
I think the next generation would eventually lose interest in all of these festivals and also even now, may be the excitment we had and the thrill of these festivals are slowly dying. So many reasons may be, before for example, festival would bring the thrill of meeting relatives, friends and getting new dressess and then making variety of dishes to eat and all that. But now its a different story. We really do not wait for a festival to buy dress. Its all whenever I feel like buying I buy kind. And in this busy world who has time to keep golu or call friends and all that.
Now that reminds me the time I was young the navarathiri excitement will start the moment we start removing the dolls. We lived in a 2 room house, me my sis, parents and grand parents. And my grandma and pa were very orthodox. EVery year during navarathiri we will buy a doll definitely and breaking a doll is considered a bad sign , so you can imagine how many dolls we had, all traditional ones and big and old idols of almost all Gods. The fun would start when my grand pa and dad try and bring the big wooden box having the idols. Then since all these idols would be wrapped in clothes me and my sis will have a guessing game of which idol was it and seeing some of the idols would even bring some fresh memories.
After that in that small room, we would try and keep 3 steps and fight and argue for where to keep which doll. While me and my sis are busy in this, my mom and granny would be making mouth watering dishes. Since my grand ma was there, she would make some prasadam almost every day for the nine days. That is one thing that changed after she passed away.later though we keep my mom would call friends only in the weekend. Then we make park and a mountain. We used to put corriander and mustard seeds there and me and my sis would really wait hours in front of the hill to see when the first leaf come out of the seed. But never we have succeeded in the attempt.
Then, everyday evening we would dress up traditionally and mostly I would dress up my sis as krishna or Radha then we would go to all neighbours house, and most of them would have kept golu. They would ask us to sing, we will sing take the prasadam and then invite them to our house. Wow it will be a great 9 days. And once it is over,there will be a sadness when we pack and keep the dolls back as if it were a farewell.
Navarathiri is one festival, when me and my sis would also get a new dress. Mostly it would be the traditional dress of full skirt and blouse and then lots of papads to eat :) and lots and lots of sweets and snacks. But once my grandma passed way, time changed my mom was working so she never had time to make them at home she would buy from shop and then it was not like daily having people visit us. It would be only in the weekend we would also go to others house to visit for navarathiri ad to invite them also to our house. Slowly its kidn of became mechanical. But atleast still there was a nice time to have time to get in touch with relatives and friends in the name of festival and then in the end its all about sharing and caring.
so now this time, I finally managed to keep 9 steps and did the pooja i know of. I hope my daughter likes it and understands the importance of our culture and the variosu festivals we have.
So wishing all of you a belated navarathiri wishes and advance diwali wishes.
