happiness and food

I wanted to say this towards the end of 2014 but can’t resist the temptation. This year has been a totally different one from what I had planned – almost no travel and no road trips but instead a year where I have learnt a lot about India’s rich culture. Much more than what I got to know from books or my personal experience. I got to know of so many new festivals and traditions that I feel blessed to be around the right people and the right time of the year.

The last week of September was a relaxed one with Thursday off on Gandhi Jayanti, then Friday when it was Dusherra and then finally came the weekend. On Friday morning, SJ asked VT and I to visit her place for Golu. Now, SJ has been asking me to come over every year for quite some time but it never happened. This year we got lucky – the time was right and so was the occasion.

Golu is a festival celebrated in Southern India during Navratras (9 nights) and goes up till the 10^th day, Vijayadashmi. The word Golu is a Tamil word and it means Divine Presence. This festival is known by various other names in southern states like Kolu, Bombe Habba (Kannada) or Bomma gullu(Malayalam) or Bommai Kolu (Tamil) or Bommala Koluvu (Telugu). What the festival really entails is figurines of gods, goddesses, saints, and famous devotees are arranged on an odd number of piers. There is no compulsion on following this ritual but if a family starts celebrating this ritual, they should not stop and pass it on to the next generation of the family. I was given to understand that not all Kannadigas follow the festival but they do close the Navratrs by Ayudh Pooja.

When I asked SJ’s mother who was an expert on this subject about why this festival is celebrated, she had a beautiful answer to share. She mentioned that children of the household get to understand our tradition and culture through these dolls and that is one reason why this festival is also referred to as the “Dolls Festival”. People believe that every night, these dolls come to life and bring positive energy in the household.

Every day, rituals are performed and prasadam is offered to the deities. Friends, family, relatives, colleagues are invited to come over. Isn’t that such a great way to learn from each other? SJ’s dolls ranged from Dashavataram, to stories from Ramayana, Mahabharata and even the replica of UNESCO preserved structures like that in Mahabalipuram. Not just that, there were dolls depicting the Mysore Dasara set up with royal family, elephants and danseuse too.

I totally agree that learning through seeing is the most effective.

 

Not just the epics – Ramayana & Mahabharat, there are so many other things to see in the way these arrangements are done – like old times and modern weddings, some artisans at work and dinner being served on a plantain leaf. There was so much more that I was wondering how many pictures I could click.

Personally I was amazed that the effort that goes into celebrating this festival and making it look as beautiful as these pictures. SJ mentioned that their family keeps picking up relevant dolls throughout the year where ever they go and this means a good investment. The dolls are never thrown away and then the collection keeps on building over years. The dolls need to be stored in a manner that they could be used the following year without any damage. Storage also becomes a task that if gone wrong would mean people from different mythologies sitting at odd places. e.g. Ram in the set up of Mahabharata. So ideally. not just storage but a logical storage is crucial.

This was indeed a day well spent and I would say I was blessed to be able to celebrate this festival with SJ’s family 🙂 Happy Golu everyone! May the divine presence look after you.

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Linking this post to the Write Tribe Pro Bloggers Challenge – October (Post #7). A pledge to write daily or at least write more than September 🙂