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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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A Goddess and a Golu

As Navaratri comes to a close, let me quickly take you to our local Mariamman Temple, a hub of activity during Navaratri, and show you their Golu...





Mariamman is a village goddess, and shrines to her are common at the outskirts of villages, since she is believed to protect the village from danger, evil, and diseases. In our colony too, the Mariamman temple is located at one end, protecting us in more ways than one. For one thing, the lane can be quite dark, and it is the temple and its bustle that makes walking along that lane at any time of the day, and sometimes at night, safer! As you can see, the temple is quite  a small one. The deity you can see is not the main one. It is a bronze replica of the idol, taken out in procession.



The Golu itself is filled with dolls, crowding both the sets of steps.

The smaller set of steps hold the older, more traditional, dolls,
while the bigger one holds the newer ones. 

The smaller steps... Since I have shown you these before, through earlier posts,
I am not showing you these in detail right now. To see the earlier posts, click here and here.





Here are some interesting ones.

We loved this Ganesha on the moon

This little shrine with the devotees is pretty, right? 

Here is another shrine, with more devotees...

Birds, as usual, catch our attention..



And this lion, hiding behind, caught Samhith's attention!

Kamadhenu, we have seen before

and this one, the fortune teller too!



This is a new one... looks like an interesting story. Just cant figure out which one!

The huge vegetables look inviting!



P.S. Most of these dolls have either been donated by people, or by our local shops. Therefore, it is no surprise to see some of the dolls we saw earlier on display. However, we liked some of them so much that we just couldn't help showing them to you again!

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Location: Chedda Nagar, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Comments

  1. Prasad NpOctober 13, 2013 at 4:12 PM

    Beautiful pictures and the concept. Now that I remember we did something similar when I was very young in North India also. I don't think it was called Golu or the reason of celebration was same, but yes a lot of toys, dolls and idols of deities were decorated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. P.N. SubramanianOctober 14, 2013 at 9:51 AM

    Quite interesting particularly the bifurcation of old and new. It is for the first time that I could see a temple Golu. Thanks to you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ArchanaOctober 14, 2013 at 1:46 PM

    I never knew about Golu until today. Thanks to you and your blog! :)
    I have been following your blog ever since I found post related to skywatch on your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  4. sriOctober 15, 2013 at 12:02 PM

    beautiful! i really like the birds

    ReplyDelete
  5. TyanaOctober 16, 2013 at 4:32 PM

    Wow..such a beautiful post.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AayuOctober 18, 2013 at 1:51 AM

    http://tinyurl.com/workid/?id=Aayu

    ReplyDelete

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