durga pooja

Navarathri 2026

This year we celebrated Navarathri by visiting friends and family across the bay area.

San was happy and that made me happy.

She did all the driving and logistics. All I did was match her Sari to the best of my ability and go sing in a lot of places where she was happy to sit back and listen. She also had to do most of the eating as I am allergic to lot of things. Felt bad that she had to pull this off solo..

Here are the pictures..

First the matching matching..

Once your head has stopped spinning.. you can take a look at this.. (except today, where I was not invited, made it all the other days).. The picture below is definitely prettier than the one above, without me being a “repeater drishti pottu”. This one needed the floor pose to cover up some gaps.. not all pictures were the same.. San was not happy that I kept using same backdrop in same location every day.. hope she sees this and understands why!

A gallery of all the Kolu’s and any dolls that were unique or caught my eye…(in portrait format)

Photos in landscape format..

There was a lot of enthusiasm, creativity from adults and kids in the doll displays this year! Hoe this gives you a good glimpse of our bay area navarthri visits..

We are at an age where the number of folks who don’t celebrate every year is increasing. We are all in fifties. That means previous generation is in their 80’s and 90’s. A lot of missing folks and kolus this year as well. Then again, time keeps going and they will come back the following year.

Got to learn 12 new songs and got to sing a few of them.. A separate post on that tomorrow. Have finally learned to admire Dikshidhar after all these years!

Indian festivals are amazing!

A very different navarathri

If you read my blog or see my posts regularly, you know that this blog has documented every bay area golu we visit during Navarathri for what.. 15 years running?! 

This year, I did not get invited to any Golus. San did.. as it was a ladies only timed event at most houses to avoid people from different social bubbles interacting. 

Save for my next door neighbor, I did not get to do the usual golugraphy. It is also a passion of mine to capture any new dolls in the display or anything unique year on year that folks come up with. 

The only golu from this year..

The new doll this year that captured our attention .. 

we did do the Saraswati poojai at home ..

San took this photo of me to send to my mom.. one of her best clicks in recent times..

This year given we dont get a chance to wear new clothes.. that is an understatement.. have not even worn formal pants for more than a few hours since March! It has been T-shirts and track suits and sitting and attending meetings or doing yoga on the same mat all day.. 

So every festival gets a new shirt.. this one was purchased last December during the India trip. 

The little one gets the photo credit. San is her usual lovely self and puts my age in perspective and stark contrast just within the 2020 photo sets..

Last year I decided to match shirt colors with San's saree color and went around for Golus.. this year has been different.. of the 9 days, she dressed up only on 4 and went to select friends houses with fixed time slots. 

Navarathri has understandably been a muted affair for 2020. It was my sincere prayer to the godess of learning that folks learn that wearing a mask and social distancing and washing their hands can save lives and the lives of people who are elderly, have other health conditions are as valuable as their own! 

No one needs to die because someone decides to be irresponsible.. the whole "in pursuit of my own happiness at all costs" attitude has a fundamental flaw that is glaringly obvious, thanks to a small virus!

This last year has been good for learning.. hope the coming year brings more knowledge to me and everyone around me.

Wishing everyone a happy Dushera/Navarathri/Durga pooja/Saraswati pooja/Vijayadasami/ Ayuda pooja.. and whatever other name you celebrate this festival by.. 

Navarathri 2018

This year Navarathri came and went. . . and it took me a good 10 days to come up with this post.

It was another hectic 9 nights with only one weekend in the middle and that meant going and visiting friends across the bay area between Friday night and Sunday night.

At least I am here for this was the thought and don't have to travel. Then came Jr.'s marching band competitions and the picking up and dropping off for that meant I got to visit even less folks than usual.

Did not do the saraswathi pooja and Vijayadasami prayer this year. San's chinna paati passed away. The golu we usually attend at MIL's cousins place was always one of the grandest. Almost every large scale display of dolls reminded me of her and conversations with her. Just did not feel like doing any pooja this year. 

Did go see some Golu(Kolu's) with San, and took pictures. This year, wanted to take photos of unique dolls in the displays that were not seen in other displays. It was a larger list and eventually a lot of the redundants were taken off the list. 

Some of these are tiny dolls that are only a few inches tall but have some amazing detail.. 

Here are a few of my favorites..

The full displays and the other unique pics are in the slideshows below..

 

Also learned of the new and improved Snapseed App (thanks to Raja Ramki) and played with some of the pictures with that app. It was how I spent time while waiting at airport gates last week. Given all the photos were taken on the iPhone X, made it easy.. 

Another year has come and gone. The kids showed a lot less interest in visiting folks this year than previous years. 

Next year I hope the festival falls over two weekends and there are less conflicts!