Happy Dassehra! Why is it the Internet of a Festival?

If you’ve been with me the past few days as I went round the blog floor in nine nights of dancing and corresponding colours, thanks for making it to the final culminating day.

The nine nights end with Dassehra – the final 10^th day – again celebrated differently in different parts of India.

In a nutshell however the day represents triumph of good over evil, the victorious and the vanquished.

But for me the past nine days and the nine colours have given rise to more questions than answers and would love all of you to try and answer as many as you can down below in the comments section of the blog.

Question 1.

My friend RP happily suggested that these colours always existed and there is also a specific logic behind the symbolism of the colours for each day. I buy that logic 100%. The symbolism of colour in the Indian social and religious scenario is huge. But what beats me is something else – why are the colours different for different years?

Here are the examples:

Colours of 2014

Colours of 2015

Who did this? The Internet? The Gods? The Goddesses?

Question 2

While the Goddess worshipped on each day wears a colour that represents what She stands for, why do devotees wear another colour on that day?

Question 3 (and this one is simple!)

Did you follow the colours all 9 days? If yes, post your pics with the day and colour and we'll make a festival of it!

Question 4

I know this festival has always been celebrated with aplomb. But why do I feel this celebration has gone up several notches now? Is the net making it bigger than what it is? Are the colours a new phenomenon? 

Let's keep this conversation going. It's about 20 days to Diwali now! Stay blessed.

Have you been following the Navratri posts? Here they all are...

The sky is the limit

Go Pink. Because you rule

The Purity of White

The Flames of Orange 

The Grey Day
The Internet of a Festival

The Internet of a Festival - The Flames of Orange

The colour saga continues. It’s Day 6 of the Nine Nights of Dancing, Navratri.

Today’s colour is orange. And if you’ve not read the earlier posts on The Colours of Navratri, the links are below.

While orange is everything bright and beautiful that India and Indians stand for what’s really worth talking about is the symbolism of orange.

Most people know that orange has immense religious significance because most of the monks wear orange but most also don’t know why they wear orange.

Orange or Saffron, actually represents the colour of Agni or fire. And fire is sacred because it burns away all the impurities, dispels darkness and gets rid of ignorance. There couldn't be a better representation of purity than with the colour orange. Orange flags, sometimes triangular, sometime forked, atop the perch of Hindu temples, are representative of this. The flames of orange.

In all its representations, the colour orange comes out as the shining symbol of the search for light, the light itself, the quest for knowledge and wisdom.

Besides it’s the colour of the setting sun, ripe tangerines, autumn leaves, the evening sky, and of the ubiquitous flower of worship in India – the thickset marigold. Get all of this in one colour – orange.

So brighten up today. What better colour to wear, no matter what it means to you. It’s bound to bring with it joy and vibrance and the shining light of knowledge.

And remember, Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge is watching. Stay blessed.

Missed earlier posts on this festival? Get them here - 

The Grey Day

The Internet of a Festival

The colour of pain

Seen the humble moth? Plain brown with a few specks here and there. Would you ever call it beautiful? And then you see a butterfly. And you exclaim at its colours, its dazzling beauty. Yellow specks on a bed of green. Stripes of gold on black. Red streaks on a purple ground. Patches of vibrant green on white tipped wings. An endless world of fascinating colour. And yet, each butterfly was a moth first, a plain-Jane moth – with just specks of brown on a ground of more brown. How dull.
I believe, that is what we are when we come into this world. Untouched, plain brown little moths.
Leading sheltered lives, protected from the outside world by our doting parents and we grow. We grow wings, we learn to fly and still we are dull, plain brown.
Then reality strikes. In all its fury. The death of close one. A relationship torn asunder. The loss of a partner. The untimely death of a child. A debilitating accident. An unquenched thirst. A near-death struggle. The loss of everything you hold dear.
And you feel pain. Pain that reaches into the depth of your being. Gouges out neat red streaks that will never stop bleeding. Cuts open your person and exposes what you really are. And then in that bareness of pain, there’s no one but you. No one but you. And you look around the barren landscape and you have only yourself to help. And as you struggle more and more, the gashes bleed. The old wounds turn to yellow brown scars. New gashes bring out the brilliant red again. And pain strikes in new ways, with new patches and specks of colour and each episode leaves behind a mark. A line in your face. A wrench in your heart. A spasm that cramps the very core of your being.
And you change.
You are no longer that plain brown being. Because the pain has coloured you. It has painted brilliant yellow patches and edged your wings with white. It’s given you bright red streaks and a purple ground to add to the effect. And bits of yellow. And you walk with that pain with pride because now the pain does not own you, you own the pain. And the pain has only made you what you are – unique and truly beautiful. And suddenly you have added colour to the barren brown landscape.
And you are transformed.
From dull and dowdy to vibrant and colourful. But only you know that the red comes from bleeding scars. Only you know the purple comes from old bruises that never cease to hurt. And only you know that the yellow shines when you reach a point where you forgive all those who caused you pain because that has made you what you are. (Those yellow patches are worth their weight in gold.) Not many have them. And you can now walk with your head held high.
And you come out stronger.
And your weakness becomes your strength. And you spread your wings and fly. Only this time everyone exclaims how beautiful those wings are. And you smile. And they see it in your eyes. And they say it’s beautiful. But it’s not beauty. It’s pain. And it’s the colour of pain that’s so beautiful.