Navaratri , The Nine Nights of Celebrating the Hindu Goddesses Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswathi. Golu is the festive display of dolls, mostly comprising the dolls of Gods to bring in their divine presence to home.
2 Days before Navaratri ,out of the blue the thought of having our first golu struck as the workload had eased out for the next 3 weeks! For once the husband and me knew our work schedule . The Husband got really excited that he picked up the bag and said "Let's go Bommai (doll) Shopping at Malleshwaram😃".The Parents and In-Laws were totally surprised and excited to know, that's because Mum and the Mum-in-law could not accommodate the golu in their hectic work schedule.
So hubby and I thought we would start small by having 3 steps, as golu ought to have odd numbered stair setup.
Hubby and Me got the dolls for initial setup,Mum and Dad set of to Mylapore in chennai to get few more dolls before their travel to our home in Bangalore , FIL helped with some heavy lifting of the stand and its setup , MIL found out a super glittery Saree for the stair and The Grandma-In-Law(Granny K) & me had a detailed conversation about arranging dolls , prasadams , navaratri gifts and all the age old practices to be followed for the next Ten days !!
Tadaaaaaaa......!
So initially planned 3 steps turned out to be 5 row arrangement as Granny K and mom insisted on having the mahaans and common people along with our earlier planned all God show .
As per tradition Ganesha was made to sit first followed by the three Goddesses along with their vahaans and sevikaas .
Madurai Meenakshi (Pachai Podava kari / Green Saree Goddess) with her parrot is my favorite of all clay dolls
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| Dashavatar |
An entire row dedicated to Krishna , his ten avatars along with baby Krishna and Komatha
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| Meenakshi Kalyanam |
The third row is the grand Meenakshi Sundaresar Kalyanam with the gathering of important hindu Gods
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| Mahaans collection |
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| Common people and birds |
The last row was personally very special as we had placed the Marapachi dolls - "Pair of wooden dolls" a hereditary gift from a mother to daughter on her wedding. I had kept it safe for half a decade to finally place them in Golu
These Nine days were filled with family , friends and neighbors who came home for sundal/sweet , to comment on golu and not to forget the navaratri gift exchange !!
When my Mom arrived on the 7th day of Navaratri and having admired my Golu , she sat down and burst out laughing after noticing that I had put my Christmas tree light in the Golu 😆. This brought back memories of my childhood to her, having studied in a convent school and of all the slokhas my mum had taught me , I would recite the "Our father in heaven" prayer taught in school at any golu when a Maami(Auntie) asks me to recite a slokham 😂😂
And of course I did too in my own golu with a friend (Sandy is a teacher in a christian institute) who was scared that I might ask her to sing. I narrated my story and she said so what let's recite it together !! Imagine the fun my hubby had witnessing us do it 😆 also he clicked us during our selfie moments
A wonderful festival that helped me connect to my roots , make more friends and of course a lot of appreciation about my culinary skills from the neighborhood auntie squad & Granny K 😄
