Navarathri Golu - 2017

We are currently celebrating Navarathri (nine-nights) and the Golu visits that come with the celebration. 

The women and girls (and their drivers by induction) are dressed nicely. 

There is high octane fuel.. err Sundal to feed the traveling beauties and chaufers.. 

Some fine singing by the kids in front of the doll displays and 

the doll displays themselves.. a thing we look forward to in this household. 

For those of you who are new to this blog, here is the background. South Indians celebrate Navarathri (Dushera, Durga Pooja in other parts of India) with elaborate doll displays on a staircase pattern (padi) and make some yummy treats with various legumes on 9 nights of the festival. They invite ladies and kids to visit their house, they sing in front of the deities, eat the snacks and are off to visit other folks. The ninth day is a prayer to the godess of learning, Saraswathi and the tenth day is celebrated as the day of Victory (Vijaya- Dasami).

In most houses where there has been a death in the family that year, they skip the display in their house and visit other folks. In some rare cases, where families found that the first year they kept the display as a newly wed family correlated to a death of a closed one, and I use the term correlate with a lot of hate given my applied math background... they watch cautiously. 

My grandmother apparently lost three kids to three years when she tried to keep the golu and decided that keeping the golu was not auspicious for the family. Since then (60 odd years ago), there has been no golu in this house on any paternal desencents. Any woman who gets married to a guy in this family, is promptly brainwashed irrespective of her education level and is told "not to tempt fate by keeping a golu". 

Let's just say that everytime I piss a flamingo dies. Unfotunately piss I have to. Out of respect for my elders (let's call it that) I am just happy visiting golus and taking photos of my cuties in different dresses. . . and of course documenting the golus from bay area which are frozen in time.. the Golus in Chennai seem to have morphed into some advanced concepts in terms of themes, dolls and partying! 

This is typical of any immigrant community that evolves on one side and supresses evolution on other fronts to keep things "authentic".. 

This year we managed one family portrait..

and visited 10 or so Golus over the weekend. I will miss the rest of the golus because of work. It is what it is.. Have asked Jr. to take some nice pictures of golus they attend and show me and I can add it to the slideshow below..

This year I also got to take pictures of the Dasavatharam set (10 avatars of Vishnu) from different Golus (where it was possible to take a picture). Given the circular golus and a shallow depth of focus, some golus were a challenge to capture.. next thing I know, we might need drones to take ariel views of the golu and add videos. Golugraphy has to make its technological advances, no?!

Talking of technology, the kids are taking their science projects and making the Golus interesting. We were witness to a volcano demonstration as part of a golu. Every visitor gets to see the volcano. Just think of how much fun Golus are becoming! 

Here they are...

Given that kids place the dolls and there is sometimes breakage in transit, it is impressive that the golus make it with all 10 avatars. Sometimes folks place it in the wrong sequence while majority place it right. Have written about this in a FB post before.. but there is a logic to this. My grandpa taught me that the 10 avatars of Vishnu is our forefathers way of teaching us evolution. The puranas that talk about the 10 avatars pre-date Darwin by 100's of years. 

The idea is :

life started in the ocean.. the first avatar is fish

Life moved to amphibians .. second one is a tortoise

Then it came to be ground feeding land animals .. third one is a boar

Then came a predator .. Vishnu as a Lion

Then came a pygmy or dwarf .. Vamana

Then it is all homo sapien transformations with a man who is mentally unstable (but physically a man as we know it) - parashurama (violent man)

followed by Rama - man with ideals

then Balarama -- a man with a plough (he has now settled and has figured out how to tame rivers and do agriculture.. non nomadic man)

then Krishna (god who does anything he has to to win and in the process sets up the downfall of man)

Finally Kalki, the doomsday avatar of Vishnu who finishes off what Krishna started. (Last year I had made fun by saying Trump is Kalki and regret that.. he won as I predicted and given where we are.. he might actually be the 10th avatar of Vishnu.. given God comes in all shapes, sizes and colors..even orange)

It is interesting to see how sometimes we miss the bigger picture or the hidden lessons! 

As usual, look forward to next years's Golus..