Whilst most of our other sister organisations were celebrating Navratri for 9 days, we decided to celebrate on two Fridays and Saturdays, i.e. on 12th and 13th October and then on 19th and 20th October. The committee decided to take a chance to hire a karaoke singer, instead of a group of musicians. This provided our members with music suitable for the occasion, yet gearing it to attract as many youngsters as possible. This certainly worked as the attendance on all the four days was fantastic.

We also had a prize per night that was given to the most enthusiastic person performing garbas and dandia-raas. As we were continuing our 15th Anniversary celebrations, on Aatham day we had 15 Aarti Thalis which when lit with ‘divas’ projected as 108 ‘divas’. What a fantastic sight!

As with tradition, we started with Hingraj Mataji’s Aarti, then commenced the teen taali garbas, followed by two taali garbas & garbis. Aambe Mataji’s Aarti was sung mid-way. Immediately after the Aarti, music was tuned to dandia raas. This was the best part of the evening when the youngsters took charge of the floor (so they thought!) but they were up against others who were more experienced and with lots of stamina. We had three judges looking for a winner every night but they were amazed when they realised that the more experienced also deserved prizes – we shall leave that for next year! Meanwhile, the winners for the four nights were:

Donor: The above 15 Aarti Thalis and all the 4 winners’ prizes were donated by Ranjanben Tank.

We take this opportunity to thank all our donors and sponsors for prizes, soft drinks, milk-shake and dry-fruits & sweets for prasadi, every night. We are also grateful to all those volunteers who helped us every night of Navratri to make the event a success.