CASSELBERRY, FLORIDA, October 9, 2005: Hundreds of local Hindus with roots from all corners of India and across the world have been coming together at the Hindu Temple of Greater Orlando to celebrate the female side of divinity in a 10-day community festival of color, folk music, song, dance and worship. The annual fall festival, which began Tuesday, honors different feminine deities representing facets of the one supreme God for their triumph of good over evil. The festival continues through Wednesday. The first nine days of the event, marked by worship, dance and devotional song, are called Navaratri, which means “nine nights.” It commemorates the nine-day battle and ultimate victory of the Goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. The 10th and final night, called Dassera, is devoted to worship.
At the temple community hall in Casselberry, a rotating pedestal adorned in colorful flowers displays photos of the female Goddesses Durga (representing strength), Lakshmi (representing prosperity and health) and Saraswati (representing knowledge). The Goddesses are paid homage for three consecutive days each, but their combined attributes are recognized as necessary to overcome worldly problems, said temple member Palavi Jahagirdar of Longwood. “Each day of the nine nights is in honor of the Goddess who conquered evil,” Jahagirdar said. “All of these are ideals. They conquer the bad.” Jahagirdar noted that the mood of the festival is very upbeat because in India it coincides with the end of the monsoon season and post-harvest time.
As is the tradition in the northwestern Gujarat region of India, a crowd of all ages gathers at the temple community hall to dance around the deities to a lively beat. The simple, traditional three-step folk dance called garba is infectious, said Sruthi Sarangarajan, 16, of Lake Mary, who likes to bring friends of different cultures to the festival. “You can dance with old people, young people, anyone. It’s really free,” said Sruthi, a junior at Seminole High School in Sanford. “It’s different from other [festivals] in that it’s more vibrant and more participatory. Here, the audience members are the performers.”
On Dassera, the 10th day of the festival, celebrants devote themselves to prayer and worship. “That’s when your attention is solely on God,” Mitali said. Mitali noted that Hinduism is a religion of one God, but that the festival honors the strong, feminine aspects of God manifested in the Mother Goddess Durga and the other Goddesses. “We worship different facets of God. It [the festival] is worshipping the feminine powers of God,” said Mitali, whose family originated from Mumbai in Central India. Dr. Aravind Pillai of Longwood said the theme of eradicating ignorance through knowledge is consistent in the celebration and in Hinduism. “The remover of ignorance, darkness, evil — they are all one and the same — is knowledge,” he said.