Welcoming Navratri

I stopped to one side of the railway footbridge and squatting in front of the empty plastic bag that once held ‘Watana’ (lentil) flour and which the old lady had now laid out on the floor I pointed to one of the seven small piles of grains she had arranged in two neat rows on the plastic before asking her, “How much is this for?”

She looked at me before answering, “Five rupees,” smiling and arranging her sari over her head. The Sun had broken through the Dadar skyline, bathing early morning travelers in warm sunshine. After months of rain I luxuriated in the warmth of the September Sun.

Ganesh Chaturthi had drawn to a close a fortnight ago and the city after sending off the elephant-headed god in a tumultuous wave of celebrations spanning twelve devout days now prepared to welcome the next festival in the Hindu calendar, Navratri, literally meaning ‘nine nights’.


And it was on the first day of Navratri, 30th September that I chanced upon Kadubai Borade on the railway footbridge selling an assortment of grains for use in the festival rituals. She sat with other women vendors hawking varied wares.

Actually I was surprised to find her that day because being the opening day of the festival I reckoned households celebrating the auspicious day would have already made preparations a day before the start of the festival, buying handful of grains and scooping mud from flowerbeds in the neighbourhood to fill small clay pots usually placed beside a representation of Goddess Durga. And the next day after sowing grains of jowar in the clay pots on the morning of the festival, followed by religious rituals marking the start of Navratri, they would’ve gone their merry way.

Much traditional dancing and festivities marks Navratri and people turn out in large numbers to dance the night away, night after night until the tenth day, Dussehra (Dasara), marking the day Goddess Durga vanquishes the demon Mahishasura. Until then, dancers in traditional dresses swirl night after night to the beats of traditional music featuring the dhol and the dholak and tabla among others. The dance forms Garba and Dandiya have come to symbolize the fervour of Navratri.

Navratri or ‘Nine Nights’ is a celebration of the nine avatars (forms) the Goddess took to vanquish the evil. On each of the ‘Nine Nights’ devotees worship one of her nine avatars (forms), namely Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skanda Mata, Katyayani, Kalratri, Maha Gauri, and Siddhidatri. In her Kushmanda form she is depicted with eight arms and riding a tiger. The number of arms varies with the forms she took.


Posters of political parties wishing people on Navratri have come up all over the city and adjoining suburbs. Typically the posters depict an image of Goddess Durga astride a tiger and pictures of political functionaries arranged around the deity.

Kadubai was alone in her choice of wares that Navratri day. It was hardly surprising because I found it unlikely anyone would’ve waited to buy grains and a bed of soil until the opening day of Navratri. So I doubted if Kadubai would’ve any takers for the assortment of grains she was hawking and as also the mound of mud she had stacked to one side unless someone had missed preparing for the festival until the morning of Navratri and came hurrying over looking for grains and soil in which to sow them before it got too late. Most Hindu religious rituals need to be completed before the clock strikes noon on the day of the festival, the understanding being all rituals need to be completed in the morning, preferably early morning and 11.59 am is technically still a morning. It was only half past nine on the festival day when I stopped by her side. The Sun was just about beginning to warm up the day.

“And how much is the soil for,” I asked her, pointing to the small mound of soil the colour of coffee.

“Five rupees,” she answered, cupping her palms together to indicate the quantity I can expect for five rupees.

I gathered a handful of grains in my palm and tried identifying the grain varieties, asking her of the varieties she had mixed together in each lot on display on the empty plastic sack. Sifting through the mixture Kadubai Borade pointed to each grain type and identified it for me in a Marathi dialect peculiar to Solapur, the district bordering the state of Karnataka. Solapur is known for Sugarcane barons and the influence they wield in political circles in the state of Maharashtra.

The other day when he was talking of state subsidies for sugarcane factories that the Govt. of Maharashtra passes on to ‘those of their own kind’ (read caste) my uncle happened to mention that come weekend it is almost impossible to get bookings for AC Three Tier seats on the Siddeshwar Express connecting Mumbai to Solapur unless booked well in advance. Apparently the sugarcane factory lobby, largely made up of the politically powerful Marathas, the caste that dominates Maharashtra’s political scene, travels to Solapur on weekends. Since I mostly travel by Second Class with few exceptions I haven’t had much difficulty in getting tickets for the run to Solapur on the Siddeshwar Express. It leaves Mumbai in the night and reaches Solapur fairly early in the morning, at the break of dawn. I take the Udyan Express for the return journey from Solapur.


The grains (seeds) Kadubai sold were an assortment of corn, wheat, jowar, rice, and one other variety that I could not identify positively. Husk covered the rice seeds in the lot. Initially I had expected to find only jowar seeds since traditionally it is jowar seeds that are planted in an earthen pot and placed beside a representation of the Goddess, the seeds then bear shoots over the duration of the festival. The tender jowar shoots having sprouted by a few inches over nine days are then given away to devotees on the tenth day after performing puja (a religious ritual). The seedlings are symbolically considered to be blessings of the goddess, Durga.

“Pack this lot for me,” I tell Kadubai, pointing to two piles of assorted grains.

“I’ll give you one for free,” she said. I nodded as I reached for money to pay her.

Back home we had already planted jowar seeds early that morning, marking the start of the festival and had no need for grains anymore but I went ahead and bought the lot from Kadubai, just in case the jowar seeds that we had planted in the tulsi vrindavan (a clay construction with images of deities on its four sides and used to plant tulsi. Tulsi is Indian for basil) fail to sprout. As I was to find out later, my fears were unfounded and the jowar seeds have sprouted a robust growth, considered to be a good omen for the family. The picture adjacent shows the growth as of today, the sixth day of the festival. There are three more days to go.


We used the tulsi vrindavan to plant the jowar seeds because I failed to bring home a clay pot for the purpose though I came upon a youth selling small clay pots and mud on the railway footbridge at Dadar the day before Navratri kicked off.


The same day several women too sat to the side of the railings selling assorted grains piled neatly on plastic. Like Kadubai they too had piled up soil in small mounds. They had many takers that day as devotees went about preparing for Navratri the next day. I had hurried past the vendors to be in time for the office and ended up without a clay pot on the morning of the festival. The tulsi vrindavan came to our rescue.

It helped that the vrindavan, filled with soil, was lying unused around the house since the time sparrows repeatedly frustrated our efforts in planting tulsi (basil), stripping the plant of its leaves when no one was looking. Tulsi has medicinal value though it is another story how the sparrows came around to discovering its healing powers.

I’d preferred an alternative to planting jowar in a tulsi vrindavan and I blame the elephant that I came upon for forgetting to get a clay pot home on the eve of Navratri. My spirits had lifted on seeing the elephant again. The last time I saw the elephant I blogged about it in my previous post. I believe it is a ‘he’ for there’s just a hint of a tusk to be seen.


This time around a youth who was taking bananas home stopped by the elephant and fed it the entire lot one by one. I’m not sure if he bought more bananas to take home now that the elephant had gratefully accepted the whole lot. I doubt if elephants ever refuse any offerings, moreover there’s a certain pleasure to be had in feeding animals. I wonder if it because that’s the only way we can get the animal to accept us.


Unlike the last time I had a five rupee coin ready this time around as the trunk came seeking money at my shirt pocket. People stopped by to offer more money that the elephant expertly accepted where the snout curved by a wee bit before curling its trunk up and handing it to the mahout riding on its back.

Note: My follow-up post will feature more on Navratri.