Navratri, the gujarati style

The Gujarati community across the country celebrates Navratri, the festival of dance and worship, with a fervour difficult to match! The festival commences with the bringing of the auspicious garbo (kalash) home. Goddess Ambe Maa, who is worshipped in this festival, has nine different avatars for each day — Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri and Siddhidatri. 

Mornings are usually spent worshipping and chanting the goddess’ name, followed by an eventful night of garba-dandiya, and aarti. The essence of garba-dandiya is a way of worshipping the goddess. But it does not end here! The evening’s festivities are followed by dances like shambhulal, dandiya, sanedo, bhai bhai and hech. Other rounds like bhangda and disco dandiya-garba are also quite the craze. 

The energy that they carry is palpable. They are even seen dancing for over four hours straight. Various competitions are held and people dress up accordingly for titles like best ghaghra, dhoti, pagdi and they win exciting prices for it. The dancing begins around 9 pm and goes on until 3 am. On the eighth day that is ashtami  Gujaratis organise the grand hawan and fast throughout the day. The feast later in the day includes dishes like puri, bhajiya, chana curry, aloo curry, kheer, dal, kadhi, rice and few other sweets as well. On the ninth day, a special lunch is organised for more than nine young unmarried girls and on the last day, Dussehra, the visarajan of the garbo takes place.