| |
 Chat with others about new ideas to celebrate Diwali |
| |
 Post a Diwali message on our Message Boards |
| |
 Get into the festive mood by creating a Diwali Group |
| |
 Browse the Yahoo! Directory for more on Diwali |
|
| |
|
 | Yahoo! Directory |
|
|
|
 Articles |
- The Festival Season
by Padmini Natarajan@ Sulekha.com
Navaratri in Tamil Nadu is dedicated by turns to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and enterprise, Saraswathi, the goddess of learning and wisdom, and Durga or Shakthi representing creation and valour. The nine days are dedicated to bonding between families and friends, and is also a celebration of womanhood. Nine steps for the nine days are constructed, decorated and arranged with dolls made of clay, painted and embellished with religious symbolism
read
full story...
- Navarathri Reminiscences
by The Fly@ Sulekha.com
Navarathri, one more fond memory of childhood, relegated to drunken reminiscences. And while I ranted about it, one of my friends was snoring, another was listening impatiently, waiting to tell me what he remembered about one of those Navratri (that's North Indian!) nights in Ahmedabad, when he managed to feel up a girl for the first time ever… expectedly, he forgot her name too, which he complained was due to “brain cells killed by alcohol…” I always thought that he was a bad listener -- you tell him a story and he would come up with something similar that had happened in his life, but I am sure some of them are made up or must have happened to a friend. This I found out when I caught him red-handed stealing one of my stories and narrating it vividly. When confronted, he said with a sheepish grin, “Just entertaining, yaar… what's the harm in it?” True, I do that too, I mean stealing once in a while... what's the harm? One must appreciate the sincerity, the vividness, and the extempore exaggerations we sometimes come up with. No wonder Ramayana has so many versions!
read
full story...
- Kanjeevarams, Bhajans and Me!
by Kausalya Mohan Babu @ Sulekha.com
I never thought that I would find more need for my heavy Kanjeevaram saris in a scenic Mid-West town in the US, than I ever did in India. Soon after my marriage, I had packed a couple of those exquisite silks into my US-bound suitcase with a 'just in case' shrug.
A few days later, along with my new hubby and an overloaded suitcase, I landed travel-weary at the immigration terminal of a buzzing US airport.
read
full story...
- Navaratri - The Nine Days Festival
by Bhagwat Shah @ Sulekha.com
Navaratri is the nine days when we thank the female principle of nature and the associated goddesses. As the agricultural communities had free time only in the evenings (days being too busy with manual labor in the fields), evenings and nights were chosen as the ideal times to celebrate the festival of the goddesses.
In brief, the nine nights are dedicated to the three main goddesses of Hinduism -- Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati.
The first three nights are dedicated to the goddess of action and energy. Her different manifestations, namely Kumari, Parvati and Kali, are worshipped during these days. They represent the three natures/ classes of womanhood -- the virgin young girl, auspicious wife/ mother and the angry old hag. This is not a criticism of women, just a classification. It helps us recognize the different aspects of our own nature.
read
full story...
- A String of Lights
Padmini Natarajan @ Sulekha.com
My earliest memories of Deepavali are of my brothers buying crackers. The youngest would sit patiently and unravel the plaited string of the tiny red and green oosi pattasu (needle-like) crackers. The larger Red Fort crackers, red in colour, were also treated to the dismemberment because, unlike the other two siblings, he did not believe in bursting the string at one go. He would light a candle and sit on the flight of stairs leading up to our first floor apartment. My cousin would join him, typically with his tongue sticking out, patiently bursting the crackers one by one. Some would not burst and were picked up and preserved for special attention. The next morning such pieces met their final fate -- they would be folded and then lit at the fold causing them to fizzle out with a mild shower of sparks.
read
full
story...
- Diwali Legends and Rituals
Bhagwat Shah @ Sulekha.com
Diwali, the festival of lights, celebrates the abundance of autumn harvest. Dedicated to various gods and goddesses, the festival also marks an important date in the Indian calendar, as this is the point from which we measure the 'Vikram Savant', the date line established by King Vikram who defeated the Huns and saved India from the Huns' potentially disastrous foreign rule.
read
full
story...
|
|
|
|
|
