Navratri, nine nights and the tenth, a culmination, an explosive amalgamation of color, form, festivity, the turning of night into day, the vanquishing of the forces of darkness and the ascendant of the absolute powers of the earth mother, Gaea, the mother Goddess, a celebratory interpretation of a variety of myths and legends of yore juxtaposed with modern mating rituals, urban angst, sponsored market driven advertising coupled with the ostentatious display of wealth, power, rhythm and blues.
The festival of Garba, culminating in Dussehra, ever so many intertwining folk myths, their apparently diverse rivulets eventually melding into the embryonic folds of the mother Goddess, a single riveting image of sustenance, power and indisputably motherhood, a symbolic celebration of the power of good over evil, the colorfully explosive flowering of the all encompassing magic circle, an abstract rendering of fertility, womanhood and the rekindled romance of myths. Interlinking stories coalsing within nine nights of mystically cathartic abandon. Shiv/Shakti; yin and yang, the synchronized balance between the apparently opposing forces, each a necessary complement to the other. The aspects of good and evil, their unending battle till Armageddon is actually an European imposition as Indian philosophy defines the forces in nature as creative partners in a ballet of a contigineous improvisational dance of the cosmos, where every ‘Rig Vedic’ molecule holds the propensities of universal creation wafting through chance.
What originally began as a confirmation of the earth mother and fertility, later ushered in Dussehra and the phoenix like arson of effigies eulogizing the victory of Ram over Ravana, not as components of good and evil but elements of duality in creation. The nine day festival of ‘Navratri’ is best known by the folk dance of ‘Garba’ in all its myriad traditional variations, mutating into urbanized modern influences leading to interpretations from the sublime to the grotesque with music, serene and relevant jarring into the absolute bizarre; a fashion parade of urban chic in a gross imitation of subduadly cultured textiled tradition with each color and pattern having a relevance within the scheme of ritual. the ‘Garba’ or ‘Garbh’ a symbolic manifestation of the womb, a culmination of womanhood, surrounded by the dance of a magic circle with its heartbeat rhythms of musical notations, a dance form at once hypnotic, enduring and protectively all encompassing. The ‘Garba’ is a ceremonial dance to the Goddess, in effect a stylized mirror image of a multi-universal dance of creation. Through its rendering, it pays homage to the very birthing of the universe, thus becoming one of the extensions of various rituals enacted in honor of the mother Goddess.
The earth mother, ‘Devi’ or ‘Shakti’, in Indian socio-religious psyche is encountered in numerous guises and forms enabling her to fulfill niche needs in a society, which venerated nature in all her supernatural forms. The earth mother was considered the womb of all life and had a direct link with all the flora and fauna of different regions and climes leading to an approximate 1008 manifold incarnations spread over the length and breadth of Hinduism.
The most popular and enduring myth is that of ‘Mahisasura Mardini’, an aspect of Durga, Parvati, Shakti, the mother Goddess, whose folk myth is the mainstay of the nine days festival of Navratri. At a point in cosmic time, ‘Mahisasura’ was granted power unlimited by ‘Brahma’. Using this divine boon, he vanquished the ‘Devas’ and established his supremacy over the three planes. The ‘Devas’ appealed to ‘Shiva’, who endowed ‘Durga’ with the essence of 33crore Gods and Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon. It was thus ‘Durga’, as ‘Mahisasura Mardini’ in an epic battle lasting nine days that vanquished the usurper and re-established the balance of the cosmos.
Ever so many myths, ever so many tales, so much of happiness, dance, revelry and the celebration of life cutting across barriers of geographical, social, economic and cultural ethos.
Published:Ahmedabad Mirror
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