Navaratri

The theme behind celebrating Dusshera or Navarathri is the victory over the evil. It’s either celebrated as Lord Rama’s victory over the ten-headed Ravana (Commonly known as Ram Leela) or killing of mahisharsura by Goddess Durga (Ambal). Ram Leela is a common thing in the north. On the tenth day of the Dusshera, the effigy of Kumbhakarna, Meghnad and Ravana is burnt. It’s really a wonderful sight to watch. This has been depicted in the film Swades as well. In Tamilnadu, it is celebrated as Golu. The dolls are considered as Gods and Goddesses’ who help Goddess Durga in winning over Mahisharsura.

Today, it’s such an easy task to keep a Golu. Everything is available in the shops – stand, dolls, decorative materials etc. But this wasn’t the case 15 years back. The affluent people employed skilled carpenters to design and architect a Golu padi.
The Golu we celebrated at D-4 isunforgattable, office appa use to take great intrest and design the golu padis, the main architec of the whole show used to be Sheaojee from 1956 onwards till appa retired from Incab , two corners of the drawing room had semi circular steps with dolls and the centre used to be the straight steps. It used to take nearly a week for the prepration and the golu at D-4 was one of the best in town.

We used to enjoy the variety of sundal prepared for the ten days period, we used to have rehersal of the drama to staged at South Indian Association during navratri period, as office appa used to be the director for the stage play, even once Gopal has acted in one of the dramas.

Nice days to remeber on all these festive occassions