My childhood Navarathri days and the transformation!

Navarathri festival which spans for nine days is one of the festival which I cherish forever. Navarathri corresponds to nine (Nava) nights(Rathri). Navarathri is celebrated five times a year and the Maha Navarathri which starts from Amavasya in the Tamil month of Puratasi (today) is the most commonly celebrated one. It has always been a fun to dress up and go around homes, be it a close relative or a new neighbor and invite them to get Tamboolam (betel leaf and nut) at our home. I was fortunate to get good friends during my childhood and we turned to be a fun loving, like minded group. Four or five of us, including my brother, start the evening with a typical cloth bag on one hand and haldi kumkum on another. Starting from our near by neighbors, we then continue to reach out to our friends at a distant place. This hopping goes on, till we are either stomach full eating all varieties of sundal (kind of dhal recipe) from each home or we have realized that it is nearing 8PM and we are expected to be back at home.

Sundal is one of the highlights of this festival which is kind of a driving factor for all the kids to visit and invite people. Sundal is offered to Goddess Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswathi during Navarathri evenings at all home. It had been fun to taste the sundal on our way to the next home. Hmm, needless to say we have started grading homes based on the taste and quantity of the sundal.

Apart from this delicious sundal, there have been many more in this festival, that draws our attention as we grew older. The stacking of various dolls, idols and decoration of the stairs, having a theme based park etc adds beauty to the aura experienced at each home. It was once, when we took all the efforts to visit someone far-off, to have a look at their cricket based doll set and a marriage doll set. People and of course businesses flourishes during this time selling stuff which adds difference to our displays. And as you might have guessed it right, we nag our parents to get new stuff and decorate our Golu (stacking of idols and dolls) and make it different from others!

As we still grew old and started learning music lessons, we eagerly wait for the Navarathri time to grab audience attention by singing songs and put our singing capabilities to test. I have to say that though I do not have a mellifluous or clarity voice, or even a good singer, I have never shied away from singing. I have always liked to sing at each home and wanted to learn more in order not to repeat songs. I believe this festival have slowly inculcated the fond of singing in me, irrespective of whether people like it or not! ;-) These childhood days have brought my heart closer to God and the devoted singing enabled me to get even more closer.

After many years of my childhood school days, when I had started my career, I could not find time to spend at home during Navarathri. Once, when I happened to visit my Aunt's (father's sister) home during Navarathri, I visited few homes nearby with my aunt. There were some differences in my experience then from my childhood. The most astonishing was, there was never a request placed to sing a song!With my innate passion to sing songs during Navarathri, I myself offered to sing some songs of Ganapathi, Devi (Goddess), Krishna. I could not resist myself but sing, as I enjoyed it and believed it as my offering to God.

When I retrospect now about my childhood days during Navarathri, I could realize how it transformed from a sundal delicacy driven festival to devoted singing. This thought adds up to my assurance, that all our rituals and practices had an inner motive of reaching(realizing) the highest Truth and Navarathri is surely the best of them from my experience.

Kanchi Paramacharya HH Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swamigal, has mentioned the significance of Navarathri Golu (idols and dolls stacking). We used to keep idols of Gods and Goddesses (like Ganapathi, Krishna, Rama, Durga, Saraswathi) in the top one or two rows of the Golu steps, which is followed later with saints and holy men (like Meera Bai, Vivekananda) and then some human dolls (like our exciting marriage dolls, cricket set) followed by some animal dolls (ah, yes yes our self created park of animals). Paramacharya shared the insight on this idols and dolls arrangement as the steps to reach higher Self.  If human beings have good thoughts and do good to others, they will be raised to great men, then to saints and finally merge with God. On the other hand, if they tend to have bad thoughts and do evil to others they will go down to the animal level step by step.

The steps in the Navarathri Golu therefore convey us a message of reaching the higher Self by taking each good step in our lives. Hmm, perhaps I have started this Navarathri journey with sundal and have now reached at devoted singing step. More steps for me to go forward to reach (realize) God. I am sure you would have enjoyed your journey towards God through your steps. During this festive occasion, let us pray God to bestow us with energy and faith to take more steps towards Him.

Here is a Navarathri Golu photo of my friend Geetha.



Picture credits: (Geetha Vijay)