Navatri is here...

This past Saturday we headed to the Great Sandwich City with Beki to do some stuff and be there to send Beki off when she left on tuesday to go back to the Land of the Free. Well on sunday it happened to be the last day of Navratri which in sansrit means 9 nights. It is the festival of worship and dance where 9 forms of the goddess Durga is worshipped.

******the following is copied from wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navaratri

"on the 10th day, the enacting of destruction of evil (Ravana destroyed by Rama) is displayed with the lighting of dolls representing Ravana and forces of evil.

Navratri is divided into sets of three days to adore three different aspects of the supreme goddess or goddesses.

First three days:
The goddess is invoked as a spiritual force called Durga also known as kali in order to destroy all our impurities, vices and defects..

Second three days:
The Mother is adored as a giver of spiritual wealth, Lakshmi, who is considered to have the power of bestowing on her devotees inexhaustible wealth.

Final three days:
The final set of three days is spent in worshipping the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati. In order to have all-round success in life, believers seek the blessings of all three aspects of the divine femininity, hence the nine nights of worship.


On this tenth day of Navratri in October - the holiday of Dussehra or Dasara, an effigy of Ravana is burnt to celebrate the victory of good (Rama) over evil.
During Navratri, some devotees of Durga observe a fast and prayers are offered for the protection of health and property. A period of introspection and purification, Navratri is traditionally an auspicious and religious time for starting new ventures.
During this vowed religious observance, a pot is installed (ghatasthapana) at a sanctified place at home. A lamp is kept lit in the pot for nine days. The pot symbolizes the universe. The uninterrupted lit lamp is the medium through which we worship the effulgent Adishakti, i.e. Sree Durgadevi. During Navratri, the principle of Sree Durgadevi is more active in the atmosphere. [1] "

I joined some friends and went with them to their neighborhood rotary club to watch the festivities. Traditionally the doll that is supposed to be burned should have 10 heads but ours didn't... so, we asked one girl there why this one only had 1 and she said because it was a cheap one... for some reason i found this conversation humourous.

First there was fireworks, to symbolize the battle between good and evil...

then the "dolls" were burned (pics shown previously) to represent good defeating evil...

then we all herded back into the main party area where food was served and the dancing began!

(Sadly no, Shah Rukh Khan was not there - only the huge bilboard of him on stage)

We thought this was hilarious - we sat down to watch the dancing when a bunch of foreigners sat down behind us.... "look at all the white people!" we were trying to blend in, but you can't miss us anymore! (we tried to strategically take a pic so you could see the group but we couldn't get them all in)

The Punjabis were the best! ( they are from the state of Punjab - or what we call the Texas of India - everything is also bigger and better in punjab, along with plenty of Punjabi pride!)

Where were we?? at a Bollywood production??