Gujarat Navratri report 2010 -- Vibrant Gujarat Vibrant Navratri Vibrant People

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Friends,

With the God’s grace, in this navaratri 8^th oct to 16 oct, I have seen:

• Garba at AMBAJI chachar chowk.
• Garba at my home town Gandhinagar
• Garba at Ahmedabad’s VIBRANT Gujarat’s Vibrant Navratri
• Garba at traditional Gujarat village called Tarapur (sheri Garba ) with new thing
• Garba at holy place called DAKOR ( Lord Krishna). Eaten 56 bhog thali (dish) from krishna temple

So during nine days of Navratri, I have visited five distinct places across Gujarat, which served my purpose to shift to my Love Gujarat from worst Mumbai. Now if you love traditions, culture and Garba, you will sure love further reading, else you may wait for next post on other topic. I will write on entrepreneurship, organic farming, NAMO, interviews of secular and many other topics in coming post, so stay tuned.

Now to narrate my nine days:

This whole navaratri celebration is about to please goddess Amba,durga,kali (all are same). Main spot is AMBAJI (Amba mata, ambe gauri etc). It was a divine pleasure to be at Ambaji during Navratri. While Amdavad is as usual vibrant (more than 1L visitors per day). And finally Dakor, where I had seen such a good traditional Garba and that too on the bank of holy GOMTI lake (good combination). Now We will take each place in detail in two parts. Taking Ambaji, Amdavad first

AMBAJI: 

This place is one of the shaktipith of goddess and very famous in Gujarat, Rajashthan. It is very hard to find place for living during Navratri specially after five days of Navratri. Main temple has been developed very very well in recent years, the Main entrance, security, other arrangements, darshan, Prasad etc. You will surely not complain about the facilities now a day in any pilgrimage across Gujarat. 

If you go from Ahmedabad, take Visnagar route, it is shortest one than himmatnagar. Road condition is excellent. Here some snaps of Ambaji; don’t forget to visit Mansarovar Kund in Ambaji. Govt authority is developing shaktipith van (forest) and parikrama path arounf Gabbar. I have talked with local guys, shop owners, and all have to say one common thing that in recent years Ambaji developed a lot and within 4-5 years, you will see totally new ambaji. 

 People were playing garba in the front of maint temple whole night, in long trek (almost 30min/round). One imp thing, go to back gate (exactly behind the mandir). IF you are brahmin, you can make direct entry to the temple, just be in pitamber and show your janoi

Ahmedabad (amdavad):

Here ronak of Navratri was slightly come down, because of ban on Party plots, but Govt organized Vibrant Navaratri was alone enough to counter that. I have already written detailed article about the same in

Link:

http://hims30482.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-gujarat-is-so-vibrant-report-of.html

Now, good thing was that almost each and every society, mandal’s have organized sheri garba’s across Ahmedabad. They all were start only after 12. Officially there is a rule to play loudspeakers until 12, but here and almost across Gujarat Garba starts at 12. There was no single case of resistance from single person, NGOs, Secular guys unlike Mumbai & Delhi. Roads were full of colorfull dresses moving, ladies in traditional cholis, traffic jam around University ground (vibrant navaratri location). Here are some snaps

 

I will cover Gandhinagar cultural forum and DAkor in next post. Please don’t stop yourself to write a comment and also if possible click on Google ads, I am going to donate the earnings from adsense to mentally retired people and Panjrapol (shelter for holy cows) as mentioned at top right corner.