SHIVRATRI festival of blessings, happiness, joy is about to come. The festival has started to spread its festivity especially within the community of KASHMIRI PANDITS. The festival has been celebrated in the community with joy and happiness since thousands of years. Every corner of the house is cleaned and cloths being washed so that LORD SHIV and PARVATI JI bestow all family and the members. Hopefully every KASHMIRI PANDIT family has continued to celebrate the festival by welcoming SHANKAR JI in the same manner as we all used to do it at our places in the KASHMIR VALLEY. One thing which is missed is the waiting for GURU JI till late hours for PUJA and the offerings to SHANKAR JI AND PARVATI JI, but the same type of PUJA is offered but the voice of GURU JI has been replaced by audio cassettes and CD’s.
The good old days come in front of the eyes when as a child the competition of making the “WUSER” for WATUK NATH used to be on top. The joint families are being missed now and the elders chanting the LEELA to the BOLENATH at the WATUK room. At present the families have lesser no of members and sometimes do not know the rituals properly and do not perform the PUJA properly as we all used to perform at our places in the KASHMIR VALLEY. Still every KASHMIRI PANDIT family celebrates the festival with full rituals at their own levels. It is necessary for us to keep our glorious culture and the rituals alive till we can which will keep us connected to the roots.
I wish whole world a very happy MAHA SHIVRATRI.
BHARAT B.DAS an el eye cee'ian
The good old days come in front of the eyes when as a child the competition of making the “WUSER” for WATUK NATH used to be on top. The joint families are being missed now and the elders chanting the LEELA to the BOLENATH at the WATUK room. At present the families have lesser no of members and sometimes do not know the rituals properly and do not perform the PUJA properly as we all used to perform at our places in the KASHMIR VALLEY. Still every KASHMIRI PANDIT family celebrates the festival with full rituals at their own levels. It is necessary for us to keep our glorious culture and the rituals alive till we can which will keep us connected to the roots.
I wish whole world a very happy MAHA SHIVRATRI.
BHARAT B.DAS an el eye cee'ian
2 comments:
Maha Shivaratri is not just a Celebration of the kashmiri Pundits but with time it has spread to every corner of the world.I come from an island country,mauritius and it was introduced by our great Grand fathers who came from india more than two centuries ago and one person from the great bharat had a vision that there is a lake in the middle of a junjle and that person with a small group of devoted hindus started their journey of exploring to find the lake and to their utter astonishment they found what to-day is known as the ganga talab.what was a jungle a century ago is now a great place of pilgrimage for maha Shivaratri where more than half a million hindus from Mauritius and the rest of the world come to pay their respects to Shivji for Maha Shivaratri celebrations.During this time all activities come to a halt as people converge to the sacred lake.Long queues of cars abd buses wait for hours to offer their prayers to Shivji.
Shivratri is the most warmly revered festival of Kashmir Pandits. Kashmir is famous for being the land of highly awakened saints and seers for thousands of years and Lord Shiva is the principal deity worshipped in Kashmir. Shivratri or HAERTH in Kashmiri, is celebrated on the thirteenth day of the dark fortnight of Phalguna and the following day is Shiv-Chuturdashi or Maha-Shivratri celebrated throughout India. It is a sheer coincidence that the two festivals fall one after another and are usually mistaken to be only one. On the following day Kashmiris celebrate SALAM ie the day for festivities and good wishes for each other. Lots of ceremonies are connected with this important festival of Kashmiris which are almost all observed even now.
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