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!