The H-Town Navaratri Factory Frenzy

I have been told several times by people visiting from India that we, in the USA, celebrate Navaratri (the Indian Festival celebrated right at the onset of Fall) in a much bigger fashion than folks in India.  The festival is celebrated in different ways (and for different reasons) in many parts of India.  All have an underlying theme of victory of good over evil or victory over our senses.

In Gujarat and Maharashtra, the celebration includes a Garba (a wonderful, fast paced, and sinuous dance) which is the celebration of 9 forms of shakti (Goddess Durga).  For Punjabis, Ashtami (the 8th day) is celebrated by giving food and gifts to 9 Kanyas (young girls) in a ceremony called KanchKe.  The Bengalis conduct a huge Durga puja with a procession of the Devi - an amalgamation of the 9 forms of shakti also known as Durga.

People from other North Indian states celebrate Dussehra during this time to celebrate Lord Rama's fight (9 days) and final victory on the 10th day against the ten headed asura (demon) Ravana.   Dussehra means victory over the ten-faced one.  Effigies of Ravana are built and then burnt at a bonfire in order to relive the destruction of evil.  Each of the 10 faces of Ravana also symbolize an emotion or sense that needs to be overcome (Kama - lust; Krodha - anger; Moha - delusion; Lobha - greed;  Mada - pride;  Maatsarya - envy;  Manas - mind;  Buddhi - intellect; Chitta - will; and finally Ahamkara - ego).  This festival signifies victory or control over our emotions and senses.

The festival for south Indians (especially Tamilians) is slightly different.  South Indians celebrate by creating a doll display, or golu.  This display is usually accompanied by a theme (if desired).  The mythological reference to this celebration is the story of Mahishasuramardini - a goddess born as a 16 year old with 8 pairs of hands (a weapon in each as bestowed to her by gods).  She was born for the sole purpose of annihilating the asura Mahisha.  This demon had a boon of immortality from Lord Shiva that he could not be killed by man, beast, demon, nor deity.  He went on a rampage trying to take over the world.  Hence a beautiful woman was born, and her name was derived when she succeeded after 9 days of battle.  The 10th day, referred to as Vijaya Dashami, is the day of victory.

The religious significance behind this festival in the South is to win over our metaphoric inner evil.  Devotees celebrate the 3 Goddesses (Laxmi, Saraswathi, and Durga) each for 3 days and therefore make it a 9 day festival with the tenth day being Vijaya dashami.  The first 3 days, we pray to Goddess Durga to help us conquer our inner anger or angst and gain power over our errant emotions.  The next three days we pray to Laxmi to conquer our lust for materialism.  The following three days are devoted to gaining knowledge and wisdom to harness our intellect to become better humans.  The 9th day, Saraswathi Pooja, we pray to the goddess to bestow upon us the wisdom to use our 'ayudham' or weaponry in an effective way.  Weapons could be in the form of knowledge, an instrument, a skill, or an actual weapon.  It is customary to sing Devi Mahatmyam (10 chapters of stories of Goddess Durga or Mahishasura Mardini) or to sing Lalitha Sahasranamam or 1000 names of the goddess extolling her virtues including her beauty on all 10 days.  In addition, mahishasuramardini stotram is chanted to describe the battle and the victory.  The 10th day symbolizes victory in conquering ourselves.  We attempt to learn something new on this day.

Traditionally, the golu is a doll display made by the girls of the house.  In past generations, girls were married before they hit puberty, and were expected to live with their in-laws.  This left them homesick and so they were given a pair of dolls to play with by their mom made with a wood called marapachi.  The matriarch of each family would get the girls in the house to dress up their dolls and display these on steps in addition to figurines of Gods and other scenes.  As other villagers visited anyone with talent (musical or art form) were encouraged with a platform to showcase their talent.

Since these are pious days, a protein rich food called sundal is served to help the busy ladies of the
house spend more time on prayer than in the kitchen.  It is customary to call other ladies and give them "vetthalai paaaku" ie. a goodies in a bag that includes something personalized.  In India, this would include a coconut, a fruit, betel leaves, betel nuts, and some personal care items such as a comb, kumkumum, a tiny mirror etc.  Ladies and children (buys and girls) often sing or show their talent making proud parents

Here in USA, it becomes an appropriate and convenient time to call many people over.  Although it is meant to be a festival for women by women to celebrate womanhood, the whole family is usually invited.  Most hostesses have an open house theme so as to allow guests the flexibility to arrive when they can.  This is important as many people get multiple invites for the day.  At times, the invite is for a meal as many of the invitees cover a fair distance.

This year, as with every year, we celebrated this festival with aplomb in the greater Houston area. However, with each subsequent year this celebration has had a smell of desperation about it.  It seems like each hostess wants to out-do their last year's golu feats by doing more. One of my guests stated this year that she had to go to over 25 houses on the day she visited me!  That would be a feat of operations analysis and precise execution to make all houses and be back home within a few hours.

It is wonderful that Houstonians celebrate this festival (and all Indian galas) with such gusto and energy.  However, I feel like we all lose the religious significance and therefore, the essence of the festival.  This is not about how many people can you call, or how many people called you.  It is, essentially, not a party although it is seemingly celebrated as one!

CHALLENGE:

At the risk of alienating many, I challenge the South Indian community of Houston to be better and come up with a plan to overcome this golu-veri or the H-town Navaratri frenzy.  I am just as guilty in perpetuating this frenzy as an active participant.  I had a 'party' on a weekend 'slot', and had people over for one afternoon where I invited quite a few people, and a lalitha sahasranamam parayanam on another day with just ladies.  I've talked to several of you in the past few days, and everybody had the same lament.  In fact, one friend stated that she was given this year's date last year itself!  That, I feel, is taking things a bit too far.

We all feel the loss of religious piety in the festivities.

I propose some options, and would love it if we can agree to a compromise.  I understand that people work very hard in setting up the golu displays so much so they have a museum-like quality to them.  I understand that this is the only opportunity/party for a lot of people, and so the tendency is to call everyone you know.  This is great.  I'd like us to harness this energy and build up to something meaningful.  This is my plea to the community.  Everyone had ideas on how to make this better, and I have attempted to catalog these suggestions.

Can we start a conversation now so that we can all co-mingle with a lot more peace for next year?

Option 1:  "We are family"
It takes a village to raise a child, and so I propose a village.  A Community Golus and a golu-visit by community.  We could, in each region find a place that can hold multiple golu displays (perhaps some place as big as the Chinmaya Mission Halls or the Sai Center or whoever is generous enough to have us).  We can take our golus and display in the community golu for other communities to visit and take part.  There would be no food involved.  We can each take turns to make sundal and buy fruits as the offering to visitors.  Everyday, we'd have a session of chanting.  People who feel they can lead the chanting can do so, and we can offer many of our willing singers a forum to be heard.  I'm sure we can divvy up the communities in Houston into 10 so as to be fair to every region.  This would all take a bit of coordination, but can be done if we all worked together.

Option 2:  "Have our cake and eat it too"
Golu is set up on Mahalaya Amavasay, and lasts for 10 subsequent days.  I propose we keep the first 10 days for religious activities, but retain the golu (minus the kalasam and marapachi bommais) until the next amavasay at Diwali to take advantage of more golu-veri weekends?  This means that we get to concentrate on the religious aspects, as well as the social aspects of the festival.

Option 3:  "Golu-veri by region"
We found ourselves putting in quite a few miles on our car while traversing across Houston on the same day in order to visit people in different areas in Houston.  I urge Houstonians to divide areas of Houston into 10 regions and each region pick a day (perhaps we can rotate the days in subsequent years).  Now the challenge would be in visiting people in your own region and for that we can choose  the weekend days and do both your region (say in the day time) and the target region during the evening.  This would again take a bit of coordination and cooperation, but could be achieved.

Option 4:  "Tone it down"
We could, of course, continue with the same frenzied and cacophonous approach but I urge Houstonians to tone it down.  Maybe we can limit the food to snacks?  How many of us felt like we were constantly full?  I overheard one lady joking that no one could really appreciate the food because we were eating so much!  We started serving just morsels on our plates just so we could just taste everything!  Can we cut out the mass food aspect of it and tone it down to where visitors are not overwhelmed at yet another navarathri evite?

What do you prefer?  Do comment!

Thank you for reading.