Nostalgia- Navarathri Golu

My daughter Kavitha`s recent post on her FB page showing pictures of the grand Golu she has arranged this year with the Ramayana theme triggered memories of the simple Golu that my mother used to arrange in the small one-room tenement (250 sq.ft) at the Chawl in Bombay where we were living.

 A few weeks before the start of the Navarathri celebrations she would pull out all empty tins and other containers stored in a small loft above the `Mori` (washroom)in the house. The day before the start of the Kolu she would clear half of the front portion of the house which was both the drawing room cum bedroom. She would start placing the empty containers and other items which could help her assemble a five steps `Golu padi`. This would be covered with a white cloth and some colourful festoons to make the arrangement attractive. Then she would pull out the boxes containing different kinds of dolls, mostly featuring different idols of popular gods, and arrange them neatly on the steps ensuring that dolls conveying a particular theme were displayed in the same padi (step). Dolls featuring different characters in Ramayana would occupy one step and another would feature a potbellied trader, popular as Chettiar, with all his wares. She would make a special effort to dress two -one-foot-high `Marapachi` dolls of a man and woman made in rosewood, appropriately attired to occupy either end of the top step, displaying all the comparatively bigger dolls. The dolls would become smaller as she came down the steps.

 One of the important items on display in front of the steps would be a small pond assembled using a round plate with water. She would pack the sides with mud and sow some `Nava dhanyam` on the first day. These would start sprouting leaves that would grow bigger every day of the nine days of the Golu. As a teenager and eldest in the family, I would assist my mother in making the arrangements. My main contribution was to make a small garden in a corner featuring small dolls of trees, birds and animals. At the centre would be a small hut made of cardboard and paper. One particular year I managed to light up the hut with a battery operated bulb, which became a hit among the visitors, consisting mainly of ladies in the chawl complex.

Since the room was small my mother would invite a fixed number of ladies for receiving the `vethalai pakku` ( Haldi -Kumkum )and prasadam. The children in the community would visit our home every day to get the different tasty prasadams mother would prepare. On the ninth day, the Saraswathi puja would be celebrated with the display of some of our school books and a few other items to represent ayudha pooja. On the tenth day ( Vijaya Dasami) after the puja, the books would be removed and we would be asked to read something to denote `Vidyarambam`.

 On the whole, while it was backbreaking work for my mother managing the house and taking care of the festivities related to the Navarathri celebrations, it was a fun time for the children, although there was no place for grown-up children like me to sleep inside the house, on those ten days. I had to find a suitable place, along with children with similar space problems, in the common passage or the terrace of the building to sleep.

Considering the kind of high-tech grand Golus that are arranged these days, it was a simple Golu which brought great joy to all those participating in the festivities.