At that age, finding a nice pair of glass bangles to add to my collection made my day. Everything was arranged in one of the decorated winnows while the other was put on top as a cover. Small plastic bags of Wheat, Chana dal, Toor dal, Urad dal, Moong dal, salt, rice, jaggery had to be prepared along with a bunch of mangala dravya/auspicious things such as a small mirror, new comb, kumkuma-arishina, a small bunch of black beads, bangles, blouse piece for every set of baagina. An array of things went into the baagina based on whether it was a married woman or a young girl giving it to her contemporaries. On this day, it is customary to prepare 'baagina' which is comparable at some level to a gift hamper with a bunch of things put in and is exchanged among the ladies. So the traditional 'mora' or 'winnow'(imagine a wide 3 edged cup made from thin strips of bamboo), this is used to separate grains from chaffe in Indian homes will be bought new, washed, sun dried, applied with turmeric powder and decorated (if you are one of those artistic people). Gowri vrata is performed by ladies/girls praying to the Goddess of Shakthi for her blessings. For me the essence of Gowri habba is in the special 'Morada baagina'. The preparations for the festival used to start atleast a month or so before.
My father made one swell of a purohit and everyone was happy with the arrangement.
Happy gowri ganesh festival professional#
During these days, the professional priests are extremely busy, if you had a priest come in to do the pooja, it meant you had to adjust your schedule according to the time they gave you, your cooking should be done by a specific time, all of you had to be ready before the priest showed up etc which was a hassle. My father was the unofficial purohit/priest who led all the ladies through the elaborate pooja. Not all families do the vrata and so lot of amma's lady friends would come to our house for that part of the festival.
This set of festivals (sometimes on the same day and sometimes on consecutive days based on the Hindu calendar) would be kicked off days before with the preparations.Īt nammamma's, we do the Swarna Gowri Vrata which is an extended version of the festival. Ganesha habba is celebrated outside the confines of home in most states in India. Unlike many other festivals we celebrate, this one had the definite aura of being a community celebration. Gowri-Ganesha habba(festival) was a big deal growing up for many reasons. I am sure a lot of you have similar experiences to share, I would love to hear about them.
Happy gowri ganesh festival series#
As I said, I am here with a short series on Gowri-Ganesha festivals.