Indian Festival - Navratri

Navratri is a nine night's festival, celebrated in the honour of Goddess Durga. Navratri is a long festival, which is celebrated continuously for nine days. During these nine days celebration, it is the time to put all routine work aside and prepare for the nine days of festival where you need to spend time in worship, dance, singing prayers (Bhajans) and offering your sincere prayers and love to the Goddess Durga.

To pay tribute to Goddess Durga, Garba (dance form) is done whole night for nine nights. This dance form is originated in Gujarat. Garba has been an important part of Guajarati weddings and celebrations apart from Navratri. This festival involves many different dances, from the main garba, dancing in a circle around an altar or an image of Goddess Durga, to many styles of Dandiya Raas, a dance performed with two sticks (dandiyas) and a partner. We use to do lot of spinning, hopping, and striking each other’s dandiyas in garba (dance form).

Navratri has been always my favourite festival because I use to get chance to dance all the night for nine days with my friends. We use to be in a group of 16 including boys and girls. We use to get traditionally dress for all nine nights and dance with different styles in a circle where Goddess Durga has been placed. We use to do fasting for all the nine days to get blessings from goddess Durga. I use to spend lot of time and money in the design of the traditional dress since there used to be the best dress competition.