Glimpses of Navratri Celebrations Across India

The festival of nine nights called Navratri is marked as a festival of nine avatars of Goddess Durga, who is worshipped over these nine days in her various forms. The victory of good over evil is celebrated in unique ways by families across India. The nine days of Navratri bring together everyone from the family to join the festivities.

The Tamilian Family:

Women celebrate this festival in a unique manner, arranging golus - a setup of nine stairs to place idols & statues of gods, in their houses. The whole family joins to seek blessings from goddess Durga. The guests are gifted coconuts, beetle leaves & idols of god as a symbol of the blessings received from god.

The Andhrite Family:

Women make `Batukamma` -  a seven layered flower arrangement created using seasonal flowers. 'Batuku' in Telugu means life and 'Amma' means mother. Batukamma is thus the festival devoted to celebrating universal motherhood. Women wear silk sarees and gold ornaments. In the evening, women place their batukammas in the centre and dance around them by singing folk songs dedicated to Goddess Shakti. Then they march towards a lake or any other water body and set afloat their Batukammas.

The kannada Family:

'Navratriya Shubhashayagalu' means happy navaratri in kannada.The celebrations include procession of elephants on the streets. Fairs and exhibitions of handicrafts and artifacts are a common feature of celebration.

The Malayali Family:

Unlike the others, Keralites celebrate only the last three days of Navratri - Ashtami, Navami and Vijaya Dashmi. Books, musical instruments are placed in front of Goddess Saraswati’s idol on the day of Ashtami. The books are worshipped and people pray to the Goddess to seek wisdom and knowledge. On the tenth day, the books are taken out for reading.

The Bengali Family:

The pujas are held over a ten-day period, which is traditionally viewed as the coming of the married daughter, Durga, to her father, Himalaya's home. It is the most important festival in Bengal, and Bengalis celebrate with new clothes and other gifts, which are worn on the evenings when the family goes out to see the 'pandals'. Essentialy the Puja Sharts from sixth day after Mahalaya. On Saptami the seventh day Nabapatrikar- nine plants are worshipped and a ceremonial bath or Mahasnan is performed, after which devi is worshipped. On ashtami , Sandhi Puja the most important event of Durga Puja in which devi is worshiped as Chamunda. On the last day, Dasami ,the puja rituals ends and the idol is submerged in the river along with the nabapatrika.

The Gujarati Family:

Garbha & dandiya raas mark the flavor of navaratri in gujarati families. The word Garbha means The Womb, which is the source of life. Women wear vibrant, mirror-work ghaghra-cholis  and men wear their traditional attire to play garba. The first three days of navaratri are dedicated to Goddess Durga ,the next three days are dedicated to Goddess Lakshmi - the goddess of wealth and prosperity, and the last three are dedicated to Goddess Saraswati - goddess of knowledge, who is dressed in milky white and mounted on a pure white swan. The whole family gets together to offer prayers to the goddess. Later they go to play garbha in traditional costumes that are studded with various jewels & ornaments.

The Punjabi Family:

Most of the Punjabis go on a fast for  the first seven days followed by a jagraata (staying awake whole night ,singing devotional songs dedicated to goddesses).On ashtami,the fast is broken which is followed by bhandara (a feast that includes puris & halwa chana).

On completion of the ceremony, girls are gifted red chunris signifying goddesses’ perpetual presence.

The  Maharashtrian  Family:

Many Maharashtrians  go on padyatra (walking to your destination) to temples, worshipping goddess with pujas & aartis, and some also promise to give up all worldly luxuries as offerings to goddess.Women invite relatives & close ones to their houses for haldi-kumkum, where the relatives are greeted with beetle leaves & bindi that signifies serenity & happiness in the family.

Navratri is a time when people bond with their family , relatives & closed ones whom they love and the ones they wish to spend time with. So whatever you did this navratri- called relatives over,  shook a leg (of garbha) with them, made delicacies, visited pooja pandols, we hope you had an incredible time with your family.

"May goddess Durga bestow her blessings on you and your family. Wishing you all a prosperous year ahead!"

-Happy family bonding

Team imlee:)

The Tintin Blog

Today we bring to you an interesting imlee story by Sauvik Paul aka Dream Peddler -

" Blue blistering barnacles!!!

  Thundering typhoons!!!

  You nincompoops, imterplanetary pirates, I am not going into that flying coffin again!!!!"

                               - Capt. Haddock to Thompson and Thomson in the, "Explorers on the Moon"

Oh!!! How could I forget captin Haddock and his favorite Loch Lomond brand of whiskey? And the inimitable Cuthbert Calculus, Bianca Castafiore, the two bumbling detectives? I was lazing around... in front of the idiot box last night, and suddenly this show on cartoon network came up... I just thought of watching Tintin for a change.. and I exclaimed to myself, "blue blistering barnacles, I forgot almost all the stories in it!!!! And once it had been one of my choicest of all books. I still remember I almost pestered my mom to insanity every other day, to buy me all the Tintin series intill i had all 23 of them. Hee haw!!! Someday I was too bored of reading them over and over again, I would scramble up to my mom's lap and blurred out....Read more.

About the Author:

Sauvik Paul aka Dream Peddler is the versatile person. He claims to spirited, often Floydish, forgiving, a lover of the seas, and the star studded sky and a computer half - literate. The varied colors of the author comes from his love for various things and his dislike for few. Click here to read more about the author.

  

It's time to get 'puzzled' !

We bring to you the winning imlee story by Suma - 

Whats this - 



It is a picture of two adorable kittens with a yarn of wool. It is also a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle being puzzled over by a six yr-old and his mother...
Yes! We are very smart, thank you very much! Much to the amazement of the resident snorter who thought we couldn't do it...(*i think he was just jealous)


Little S has always been fascinated by puzzles since he was almost 2 years old. He's spent many a rainy day with Kaleidoscope, the puzzle made up of colored little squares, which i love too. But jigsaws are his favorite. It's addictive and a great stress buster. Solving it teaches one about perspectives, about tenacity and is good exercise for the mind. Read more










About the Author -
Suma wears a few hats, among which one is that of a freelance writer. When not writing her travel tales or parenting articles, she loves to create magic with her words, in the form of poems and short stories. Click here to read more blogs by Suma

Childhood memories – Hypnotism!!!!

Today we bring to you a winning imlee story blog by The Rebel

Summer vacations were always the best part of my schooling days. This was the longest time that I got to spend at home considering the fact that I was always away during my school days. This was also the time when my aunt with her kids Mr. CR and Ms. LR visited us from Mumbai! It was fun time for us kids which included Mr.CR, Ms.LR my little sis Ms.SS and myself. We played all day long with games varying from lagori to cricket to hide and seek to ‘I shopkeeper’ where one of us became the shopkeeper and the other 3 were customers to the shop!!!! We the older ones always bullied the younger ones to be the shopkeeper while we played the irritating customers to the shop.  The paper cut into identical rectangles with numbers 10, 20, 50, 100 were our currency notes!!!

Of the 4 of us Mr. CR was the prankster who teamed up with either my little sis or me to play pranks on people. I shared a kind of love-hate relationship with him. I loved him when I teamed up with him to play pranks on others and hated him when I was the victim of his pranks and sometimes ridicule Read more..

About the Author:

The author writes in the pen name of The Rebel. And claims to be Arrogant, Adamant, Headstrong, Short tempered. Click here to read more blogs by The Rebel.

Tujhe sab hai pataa-meri Maa

Today we bring to you a winning imlee story blog by Daffodils aka Raumali Dasgupta -

“You know, you are just 17 now. What you feel is natural. Everyone at your age thinks that their parents know nothing, they are enemies, and they don’t love their kids. But a few years down the lane, you will realise how horribly wrong you were and how damn right they had been all this time... “

-A quote by my tutor when I was pissed off at my parents because they didn’t let me go on a school excursion with my friends.....

Dear Ma,

The first time I was walking away from you, I saw tears in your eyes. I thought- oh, give it a break! It was you pestering me all these years. You always said you wanted me away. You chose this. You wanted me to become an engineer, you wanted me to taste hostel life, and now, it’s you who gets to shed the tears. You still get to remain at home, I am the one whom you are sending away to an unknown land, unknown future!!

I didn’t realise then Ma, that one day I would yearn to get back to you. I didn’t realise that the next time I would have to walk away from you, I would be the one to shed tears. I would have to cover my mouth with my hand and bite my lips to stop them from trembling before you. I have become so egoistic and independent that I don’t want you to sense how sad I become just by the thought of parting away from you. Read More

About the Author:

Raumali writes under the pen name of 'Daffodils'. She is presently a second year CSE undergraduate at NIT Durgapur. Raumali loves the company of people which reflects in her liking for event planning and directing.

She is a passionate reader and writer, also a patient listener. Many words define her - optimist, extrovert, restless, sensitive, FB addict, food freak, quite moody at times and a lazy brat. She is obsessed about cakes and anything that’s purple. Though she is a bit ‘serious’ type, you will always find her smiling and laughing. 

Click here to read more about Raumali and her blogs.

 

I want to be a supermom

Today we bring to you the imlee story by Cynthia Rodrigues Manchekar.

When I was a teenager, I happened to catch a small snatch of an American TV series on Doordarshan, our state-run television. I don't remember what it was called, but a song on that show, sung by an 8-year-old boy, caught my attention. I won't pretend that the words were exactly as I've reported them below. Only the first two lines are absolutely accurate. The rest I have forgotten and made up but they do catch the spirit of the original. The song went something like this:

 "My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true.
She works on the computer and the telephone, but I can do that too.

My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true,
She works on the computer and the telephone,
And knits and sews and cooks and bakes, but I can do that too.

My mom thinks she's a supermom, but I don't think that's true,
She works on the computer and the telephone,
And knits and sews and cooks and bakes,
Plays football and mows the lawn, but I can do that too."

The little boy on the show was singing these lines and acting them out at the same time. Read more...

About the Author:

Cynthia Rodrigues Manchekar is a mother of two who loves to read, write, crochet, cook, bake, learn languages and watch films. She has a stash of short stories and fable-poems that are waiting to hit the limelight.Till she publishes her work she feels her writing will breathe in her blog. Click here to know more about Cynthia and read her blogs.

Not all memories are good : A fragile family snapshot

Today we bring to you the imlee story by a young talent of the contest         - Abha 

All of us want to believe that with time, every painful memory fades away or can be reminisced about with ease one day. Yet all of us know that in some cases, the memory is so firmly cemented in a foundation of pain that a different perspective can alter nothing. It’s like viewing a snapshot from two ends of a telescope. One from the point of view of the past and the other through the present. Whether you look at it from one end or another, the memory is as vivid and as agonizing today as it was back then.

Reliving such memories or even writing about them, can regurgitate discomfiting emotions or release suppressed ones like a form of catharsis. I don’t know what it’s going to be like for me while I remember this particular family memory.

It was in the winter of 2006, a day after my 9th grade half-yearlies that this specific gut-wrenching event occurred.Read more

About the Author

Abha is a law undergraduate and also a blogger, poet, pianist and Blue Cross (Animal welfare) volunteer. She claims to be the only child of a soldier and a psychotherapist. Her blogs are about life, love, relationships, tribulations, society, spirituality and absolute awareness. For Abha, the idea of leisure includes reading, listening to music and talking with friends and family. 

Click here to know more about Abha.