How I Met Navratri...

Navratri, was a festival that was closest to my dads`s heart. I just love the way he introduced me to this festival. He was the Garba poster boy of our cosmopolitan St Martins rd, Bandra, where young and old, danced to the beautiful folk songs that he sang.

Pa had an unconditional love for Gujarati folk music & art. One of his earliest business ventures as young student was visiting Kutch, Patan over the weekend, buying handicrafts,  kutchi bharat( embroidery of Kutch> material and selling them  from a stall on linking road.

I must have been in my mother’s womb, when Pa introduced me to his favorite Gujarati garba songs, singing for me. As I grew up, he would sing them for me to put me to sleep. When I must have been 4-5 he told me about the Rabarans( women from Gujarat who dressed up in colourful clothes with beautiful embroidery and lots of oxidized jewelry)

The way he described them to me, they seemed like truly beautiful women. He would spend hours dressing me up, to look like a Rabaran. He would plait my hair, drape the chaniya choli, exquisitely embroidered by the local artists of Gujarat. This would be paired with the most authentic oxidized jewelry. 

As I grew up he tried hard to teach me the garba and dandiya dance, well I think he must have  been disappointed, as I could not match up to his expectations. But soon he taught me to sing the  rhythmic gujarati folk songs, like Rangalo, Dholeeda, Mehndi tai Vavi,  Jodhe re jodhar, Tara aakhien na awifle. Thankfully I was able to sing them, although would often forget the gujrati words. Somewhere in him he wanted to expose me to the depth and beauty of gujarati folk culture and arts.

Each Navratri with Papa was a different, fun and exciting. I still remember the last Navratri with Papa, he was recovering from jaundice, not in the best of his health, but he still sang his favourite garba song Rangalo in our new gujrati neighborhood. Navrati now days has become to commercialized and more like the disco, this is something which had started even when my dad was around, and he has never really appreciated the sub standardization of one of the purest form of Gujarati  folk art.

This is how I was introduced to this beautiful festival, But Navratri has never been & never will be the same without Pa..