Durga Puja / Navami

‘Nava-ratri’ which means ‘nine nights’, is a Hindu festival that is observed twice a year, once at the beginning of summer and again, at the onset of winter, with the one celebrated at the onset of winter being more widely observed throughout the country.  Navaratri is celebrated in different ways - some fast, others feast. Some revere the same Mother Goddess but different aspects of her, while others revere avatars of Lord Vishnu, particularly of Lord Rama. In North India, Navaratri is marked by the numerous Ramlila events, where episodes from the story of Rama and Ravana are enacted by teams of artists inside temples or in temporarily constructed stages. In Gujarat and nearby Hindu communities the festival is marked by folk dance performances of ‘garba’ on all nine nights.