Devotees keep thronging temples as Navratri, the festival of nine nights, has started on Saturday. Many, particularly the women and the girls, have started fasting and it would continue for nine days. Along with it, the Durga Puja preparations are also going on in full swing at various localities in Dehradun where community pujas are held. The four-day puja would begin on October 7. Artisans and decorators from Kolkata are now engaged in completing the idols and the pandals.
Navratri festivities underway, some of the devotees have begun fast while many are restricting their diet to fruits and vegetables. Some are using sendha salt in the cooking and are partaking kuttu ki roti (buckwheat flour) or paratha while spurning onions and garlic.
Some are doing puja at homes and others are assembling at the temples to pay obeisance to the Goddess, the embodiment of the triumph of good over evil whom lord Rama, righteousness incarnate, invoked to slay Ravana, the personification of evil.
In Dehradun, on the first day of Navratri, devotees thronged several temples like Panchayati temple at Darshanlal Chowk, Tapkeshwar Mahadev Temple at Cantt, Prithivinath temple at Saharanpur Chowk, Kali Mandir at Raipur and those located in their neighbourhood to offer prayer. Many of the temples were specially decorated to mark Navratri.
Nidhi, resident of Raipur, said that she had fasted on the first day of Navratra. “I would do the same on the ninth day too,” she said.
A priest associated with the puja held at Raipur said that the Navratri would end on October 10 on the day of Dussehra. Things would end with the torching of the effigies of Ravana and his kin and the immersion of the Goddess and other members of her constellation on October 10, he said.
Navratri is the nine day festival dedicated to Devi Durga. The nine days represent the nine manifestations of Goddess Durga. Navratri comes from the Sanskrit word Nava donating nine and ratri which means night. “During the festival of nine nights, the nine forms of Shakti also known as Navdurga are worshipped, a priest said.
It is also believed that every year the Goddess makes a change in her mode of transportation for arrival and departure. As per Indian mythology, she has four other transports besides her own lion. These are Palanquin (Palki), Elephant, Horse or Boat. Her mode of arrival is worked out by the Pandits by analysing the Almanac. The arrival on Palanquin is laden with ominous foreboding, for it brings about natural calamities like earthquake, drought or landslides. The advent on Horse signifies cyclone or inclement weather. Similarly, the arrival on a Boat indicates heavy rains and flood and that on Elephant signifies prosperity and well -being.