The Magical festivities of Navratri all across India, Spiritual : Today Indya

The Magical festivities of Navratri all across India

Spiritual

ZEE NEWS

With Navratri just around the corner, there is a significant degree of bliss and felicity in the air surrounding people of different cultural backgrounds. Owing to the season of jubilant festivities, Navratri is celebrated all across the country in its own unique and high spirited ways, spiritually devoted to the nine divine forms of goddess Durga. Let's take a tour through the 9 variegated festive celebrations across the country to get drenched in the colour of devotion and love.

The Magical festivities of Navratri all across India

Dandia and Garbha in Gujarat

Gujarat is the epitome of festivities, with people robed majestically in their traditional attires, dancing out the 9 blissful nights performing garbha and dandia together, with the music echoing in the air of the colourful cities. An earthen pot with holes carved on it called 'Garbi' is lighted with diyas, symbolizing the womb which is the ultimate source of life and is used for the Arti in the evening.

Durga Puja in West Bengal

Durga Puja is celebrated during the last four days of Navratri in West Bengal and other eastern states bringing the cities to a halt. The four-day-long extravaganza is celebrated with splendid vigour and enthusiasm in pandals ceremonializing the victory of Maa Durga over the evil Mahishasura. Large, beautiful idols of Maa Durga, Kartikeya, Ganesha, Saraswati and Lakshmi are sculpted and worshipped with sheer devotion with a belief of victory of good over evil.

The New beginnings in Maharashtra

Navratri is perceived as a new beginning by the people of Maharashtra. Owing to the close proximity with Gujarat, it resembles in its celebrations, lit up with lights and music in every nook and corner of the state with people flipping over and taking delight in the festivity. Furthermore, women get together to gift coconut, beetle leaves and beetle nuts to each other and put haldi and kumkum on the foreheads of married women for the long lives of their spouse.

Kullu Dussehra in Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a pristine place which celebrates Navratri on the tenth day, known as Kullu Dussehra, marked by the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya from Sri Lanka after prevailing over Ravana. Families rejoice and get together with their relatives to pay homage to the all-powerful Lord Rama. On Dusshera or Dashami, the deities from the temples of the village are taken out in processions.

Kolu in Tamil Nadu

The devotees of Tamil Nadu dedicate the nine days to the Goddess Durga, Goddess Lakshmi and Goddess Saraswati, 3 days each. Friends and relatives visit each other and gift jewellery, clothes and sweets symbolizing their marital status and pray for the long lives of their husbands. A special feature is recognized as 'kolu' which is a make-shift of nine stairs representing the nine nights and is decorated with beautiful idols and dolls as a depiction of goddesses which are passed over from generation to generation.

Batukamma Panduga in Andhra Pradesh

Batukamma Panduga means 'come alive Mother goddess' and is celebrated during the Navratri in Andhra Pradesh, dedicated to goddess Shakti. Women stack together seasonal flowers in seven layers to give them the structure of a pot known as 'Bhatukamma' and perform pooja for 9 days, after which the Bhatukamma is set afloat in any water body.

Last three days in Kerala

Unlike other states, last three days of Navratri are celebrated in Kerala by worshipping Goddess Saraswati to grant them knowledge and wisdom. The Keralites abstain from books and music instruments during these three days as they are worshipped in front of Goddess Saraswati's idol on Ashtami, Navami and Vijay Dashmi.

Naada Habba in Karnataka

The celebration of Navratri in Karnataka dates back to the time when it was celebrated back in 1610 by the great Vijayanagara dynasty and is known as 'Naada Habba' by the localites. Notwithstanding the same reason of celebration being the victory of Goddess Durga over Mahishasura, the way of rejoicing is significantly unique which involves the procession of elephants on the street and a large number of fairs and exhibitions of the handicrafts and various artefacts is organized.

Kanya Poojan in Punjab

Punjab being the state of delicious food has an uncanny way of paying allegiance to the goddess Shakti. They keep fasting for the first seven days of Navratri which ends on the eighth or ninth day by worshipping 9 little girls and a boy, is known as 'Kanya Poojan' and serve them poori, halwa and chana. Many Punjabis also organize jagarata which involves waking for the whole night to worship the Goddess and seek blessings

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Brooms are for Sweeping

Spiritual

devdutt

Every time I see politicians waving brooms, I shudder. Brooms are for sweeping away dirt. Waving them in the air only spreads the dirt. But then, who cares about these details anymore.

As a symbol, broom reveals some very interesting aspects of culture, both in India and in the West.

The goddess who waves the broom or jhaadoo is called Shitala, the cool one, associated with various skin ailments like pox and measles. Often visualised as carrying a pot or basket in the other hand and riding an ass or donkey, she is appeased with offerings of curd and neem leaves whenever there is an epidemic. Shitala causes the disease when angry and takes the disease away when calmed down. Thus she is both: Jari-Mari (the hot one from the words jvara meaning fever and maru meaning desert) and Shitala (the cool one).

In India, the jhaadoo is also used for jhaadna, which is not just physical dusting but aura dusting, the removal of ‘nazar’ or other negative influences on ‘non-physical’ body. This a occult belief, widely prevalent in India, not endorsed by scientists though. Mothers usually insist on jhaadna for their children. The broom used for this is often made using peacock feathers which has an ‘auspicious’ eye-like pattern. Broom made of horse-tail or yak-tail are also used for this purpose.

The yak-tail flywhisk or chamar is a kind of broom meant to sweep away the flies. But it is also symbolic of royal authority. The morchha, or broom made of peacock feathers is reserved for the vizier. That is why Ram, who is king, is associated with chamar while Krishna, who is not a king, is usually associated with morchha. Amongst Sikhs, the king of Punjab did not use the chamar and restricted its use only for the holy book, the Granth Saheb, signifying he is but a servant of God.

In the West, the broom is associated with witches from the 16th century onwards. She is visualised as a hag who flies through the air on her broom. These brooms were long sticks with faggots (bundles of sticks or grass) attached to one end. Some people believe that in medieval times housewives, while sweeping the floor of their houses, often rode astride on the broomstick to give themselves sexual pleasure; when caught, they were branded as witches. Over time, women who were dependent on their families came to be known as faggots, a pejorative term used to associate them with that which is needed to clean the house. It also perhaps referred to old women who made their living by collecting firewood and tying them into faggots.

Faggots or fag became slang in boarding schools for juniors who were expected to serve seniors like cleaning ladies and maids as part of college ragging ritual. In the 20th century, the word fag gradually came to be associated with effeminate men and now is a word used for gay men in the English-speaking world.

Witches of the West used the faggot of their broom to wipe away their traces after they had flown in the skies. In India, many Dalit communities were asked to carry brooms with them to wipe away their footprint when they walked on the road. It is one of the horrifying ironies of human history that people who wielded the broom to clean the streets of villages were themselves declared unclean and ‘untouchables’.

Article Original Source : http://devdutt.com/articles/indian-mythology/brooms-are-for-sweeping.html