Navaratri in our campus

In Southern states of Tamil Nadu and to a lesser extent in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the festival of Navrathri is called Kolu or Navratri Golu, where women set up decorated planks in a corner of the house and decorating it with dolls which are collected over the years.
These Navratri dolls are arranged in several tiers. Maximum no of tiers in which dolls are arranged are 9 depending on time and space constraints.




There are also different kind of rangoli made which attract people to come to see the display. The dolls are kept in such a way that it comes down from the top from immortals to mortals. Gods,saints and mortals.



The display is usually for ten days but due to constraints of time nowadays it is kept for any of the three days during the ten days. Saraswati puja is celebrated on the ninth day when children and adults keep their books and other important things at the feet of the Goddess Saraswati and chandan and kumkum is applied on all the things in the house including the vehicles. Children take charge of this activity and enjoy doing it. Then tenth day is Vijayadashami when new activities are taken up, children start school etc.On the 10th night after the ceremonial arti and prayers, the dolls are put to ‘sleep.’ And the next day, the exhibits are packed carefully in cloth or paper and preserved for use the next year.