SFV Navaratri-2025 Round Up

Buzz is the word for ladies - as for every Navaratri - moving merrily in and around the complex in various friends-circle, attired in the day’s dress code, and seemingly on top of the world. The fragrance of jasmine flower fills the corridor and lifts.

Flower sellers Venkatesh and Mahadevi’s son Ravi had a hectic time keeping up their promises to deliver not just flowers this time, but garlands, coconuts, betal-leaves and other related items for the festivity.  In our case, for the next morning's invitation he dropped at our doorstep as late at night as 11 with a WhatsApp message, “sorry for the delay but I kept my promise.” So nice of him.

While each gathering will have its own interesting stories and anecdotes to share, mine would be confined to those with which the lady of the house has been busy with. 

By intent or otherwise the invitations did not clash or overlap. Only on one occasion, the ladies had to recite Lalitha Sahasranamam back to back. Otherwise, if it was Lalitha Sahasranamam at one place, it was Aigiri Nandini at the other, or Devi Mahatmyam in the third house. 

“Uncle, how do you know so well? You might ask. Who do you think maintained Aunty’s diary?

Aside the reasonably good number of invitations each day for Thamboolam, there were a couple of chanting sessions that lasted 1-1-2 hours to 3 hours. In-house visits included for chanting Devi Mahatmyam (also known as Durga Saptashati) for nearly three hours in one house; 1-1/2 hours of condensed version of Narayaneeyam in another house; and Lalitha Sahasranamam and Aigiri Nandini, and exchange of Thambulam in several other houses. For the long sessions, the hosts took good care of the guests with hot badam milk or dry fruits in between, to help them re-align their vocal cords.

There was a breakthrough this year in that there was an invitation from outside. The family of Mrs Anupama Hosakere of the Mandala Cultural Centre (a sprawling 7-acre area located between Thalaghattapura and Silk Institute metro stations) arranges every Navaratri a breathtaking display of over 10 000 (yes, ten thousand) dolls from the British-India days, in different themes – Ramayana, Mahabharata, etc. 

Mrs Anupama is Padma Shri as well as a Sangeet Natak Academy award winner for puppetry. She had invited our Narayaneeyam group (courtesy Aruna and Prasad of 2094) to recite selected chapters from Narayaneeyam. 

A contingent of 20 to 30 or so ladies with the selected chapters duly page-marked, stuffed the heavy Narayaneeyam book in their bags. Equal to the occasion (pre-arranged by Aruna), a convoy of six or seven cars, with spouses of some at the wheels accommodated the designated ladies in their cars to follow Satya Prasad who led them from the front. It was a sight to watch the cars moving lined up near Gate 4 and moving in unison at equal distance – in the beginning, to be precise. Thereafter might was right. Every lady was able to keep up to her commitments both in attendance and quality of rendering. If the proof of pudding is in the eating, then the host’s invitation to the group to render every year hereafter, should stand testimony to group’s genuine efforts. (When the group began rendering Kesha Pasha Drudha Pinchikavithathi… - the Rasakreeda – Anupama requested them to pause for a while. Her younger daughter, an accomplished dancer, enacted the scene to the enjoyment of all).

This piece will be incomplete without a mention of  SFV’s own grand Durga Devi Puja celebrations in Club House on Saturday evening. It was a class apart. Suffice it to quote a lady in her message to the organizers, “it was just Pure Bliss to be there, chant and witness the beautiful pujas…feel so blessed.” Not just you, Ma’am all of us. Kudos organizers. 

(If you have any comments, please write them NOT in Telegram, WhatsApp or ADDA, but in the Post a Comment column of the Blog.  It then stays with the blog. Thanks.)