The festive flavour of Navrathri

KOCHI: Navaratri, unlike any other festival, is celebrated across India, a fact which confers on it a distinct identity. No wonder, with Ernakulam and Kochi being home to people from different states, associations representing different regions are keen to bring in that festive flavour for the occasion.

Visit Veda Narayana Iyer’s house and you’ll find that his family has put in about 10 hours to make a huge ‘kolu’ which features about 400 idols, some of them as old as 45 years.
“The main aim of a ‘kolu’ is to introduce a tradition to the younger generation, to tell them the stories of Gods and Goddesses,” says Iyer.

Friends and relatives from all over the town visit each other during these nine days.
From the South Indian household, we move to the Durga pandal of the Bengali Association at Panampilly Nagar. A seven-feet-plus idol of Goddess Durga in the form of ‘Mahishasura Mardhini’ greets us here. Durga is flanked by a goddess on either side. As the priests from Bengal start the pooja, women get up and hold a curtain while the pooja was being done.

The priest announces that this is the last pooja for the morning and everybody rushes in to pray. “We have daily competitions for children during day time and in the evening there’re song and dance programmes,” says Amal Roy.

It’s nine days of garba and dandiyas at the Gujarati community gathering at the Dhariastan temple, Mattanchery.

“We plan to wear a particular colour on a day -- for instance, it’s red on Ashtami day -- and all of us reach the temple by 6 p.m.,” says Amita Aggarwal. As per the Malayalee tradition, temples all over will be flooded with devotees for ‘ezhuthiniruthal’ - the rite of a child’s passage into the world of learning. The Pavakkulam temple is organising ‘vidyarambham’ on Thursday from 8.30 to 11 a.m. sourcE: http://www.expressbuzz.com

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