Navaratri

Today we celebrate Navaratri, which marks the period of nine nights when female divinity is celebrated all over India. The first three days are dedicated to the worship of Durga,the mother of the universe, the next three days to the worship of Lakshmi, giver of spiritual wealth, and the last three days to Saraswati, the goddess of learning. Women decorate with oil lamps, as seen below, and show off their displays of dolls to visitors. A sweet called shundal is made especially for this festival of female friendship. (There's a recipe in my book, btw)

Let's open the Navaratri festivities on Shiva's Arms with a poem from novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, who paints this vivid picture of Navaratri in America:

The Garba

The nine sacred nights of Navaratri
we dance the Garba. Light glances
off the smooth wood floor of the gym
festooned with mango leaves
flown in from Florida. The drummers
have begun, and the old women
singing of Krishna and the milkmaids,
Their high keening is an electric net
pulling us in, girls who have never seen

the old land. This October night
we have shed our jeans
for long red skirts, pulled back
permed hair in plaits, stripped of
nailpolish and mascara, and pressed
henna onto hands, kohl
under the eyes. Our hips
move like water to the drums.
Thin as hibiscus petals, our skirts
swirl up as we swing and turn.
We ignore the men,

creaseless in bone-white kurtas.
In the bleachers, they smile behind their hands.
Whisper. Our anklets shine
in the black light from their eyes.
Soon they will join is in the Dandia dance.
The curve and incline, the slow arc
of the painted sticks meeting red on black
above our upraised arms. But for now
the women dance alone
a string of red anemones
flung forward and back
by an unseen tide. The old ones sing
of the ten-armed goddess.
The drums pound faster
in our belly. Our feet glide
on smooth wood, our arms are darts of light, Hair, silver-braided,
lashes the air like lightning.
The swirling is a red wind
around our thighs. Dance-sweat
burns sweet on our lips.
We clap hot palms like thunder. And

the mango branches grow into trees.
Under our flashing feet, the floor is packed black soil.
Damp faces gleam and flicker in torchlight.
The smell of harvest hay
is thick and narcotic
in our throat. We spin and spin
back to the villages of our mothers.
We leave behind

the men, a white blur
like moonlight on empty bajra fields
seen from a speeding train.