Celebrating the goddess within

Upon the invitation of the Sundaram Family, WomenBizPH members attended their festival of nine nights last October 7 at their Ayala Alabang home. Called Navaratri Golu, the South Indian Hindu festival features a display of dolls and figurines on various steps or elevations. In this case, there were nine steps: four to the left and three to the right. It is a celebration of the goddess within, where women take center-stage.

We listened intently to Ashank Sundaram as he explained the symbolism of the festival. The nine steps denote man’s journey on earth as he aims to reach liberation or surrender to god: childhood, marriage, professional or entrepreneurial life, old age, seeking god through singing hymns of praise, reading literature, listening to wise discourses, eventually doing more service and being a blessing to others to become more godlike, then practicing detachment and eventually breaking free of the world. 

In the center was the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of love and abundance. One elevation had eight statues of the same goddess of abundance, but with different themes, such as goddess of children, of knowledge, of greens, of fearlessness, and more.

Another elevation showed the blue-hued god Krishna, god of protection who takes special care of women and children. There were several statues of Krishna dancing with different women. The story goes that Krishna was so handsome and irresistible that all the women were drawn to him and wanted to dance with him. So as not to disappoint them, Krishna took many forms and danced with all the women. 

The displays portrayed various life themes, such as weddings, dances and music, marketplace, etc. They depicted humans through the different stages of life, as children playing, as young men and women working at different professions or having their own businesses, dancing, then getting married, and getting old.

I saw many similarities to Catholic religious traditions, like the emphasis on the number nine (think nine-day novenas) or the interpretations of their goddess (our beloved Mama Mary also comes in many ways: Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Montserrat, Our Lady of Lourdes, and more.  

Our gracious hostess Priya Murugesan invited us to partake of the Indian dishes she had prepared. We enjoyed the delicious Idli (puto), rava idli, coconut chutney, tomato chutney, curries, the toasted salad of lobhia or black-eyed peas, the sweet halwa made of cashew nut, and Priya’s soothing Indian ginger tea.

After our meal, Priya gathered us in a circle and taught us how to dance the kummi, a traditional dance of rural South Indian agricultural women, celebrating the harvest. Then Priya brought out decorated sticks called kolattam and got us dancing with them. It seemed a bit like arnis. Priya said this dance was called dandiya in Northern India.

Another surprise followed as we were called one by one to go to a room and get dressed in a sari. I was intrigued as several yards of the beautiful silk fabric was deftly folded and wound around me. I felt so feminine wearing a sari. 

We then had our photos taken, including a funny incident as we tried doing a boomerang in our resplendent saris. We were all trying to be gracious doing slo-mo, while our President Rosemarie Rafael decided to do it quickly. We were in stitches!

Soon it was time to bid farewell, but Priya still had another surprise for us! Seated three at a time at her foyer, Priya first smeared sandalwood paste on our hands, sprinkled us with rose water, marked our foreheads with haldi cuncum and vermillion, and then gifted us with pretty thamboolams or bags handcrafted by Indian women MSMEs. Inside the bag was a coconut to signify women’s progeny, a symbol of life, and our responsibility as women to take care of the next generation, a grapefruit to cleanse our palate, and betel leaves to aid in digestion.

What a lovely and loving sending off tradition! And what a beautiful precious experience that was for all of us! Thank you, Priya for inviting us to Navaratri Golu! I had so much fun with your family, the I-WE ladies, Beena Advani, Sharon Vaswani, Sheila Chatlani, Sucheta Joshi, and the WomenBizPH ladies, Rosemarie Rafael, Ida Tiongson, Sabsy Palanca, and Ida Joseph.

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