Growing Up Celebrating Navratri In Gujarat: A Swaying Memoir

Garba for the Middle-class

What caught my fascination with the Navratri festival as a child was that you could play out and about till after midnight. Which, for a six-year-old, was more fun than most things. My five-block, 100-flat housing society, encircled a playground large enough for us to play dodgeball and cricket on most days. While during Navratri, the aunties and uncles would all gather to decorate the grounds and transform them into a Garba playground. 

Navratri’s first day was all about gathering brick and clay to create a Math (a makeshift temple) for Goddess Durga—right in the centre. This shrine would also become the radial point around which we would sing and dance in concentric circles. At about 8 in the evening, the neighbourhood would gather at the playground for arti, worship, and prasad. The ritual was immediately followed by the first innings of Garba–be-taali, or steps with two claps. The music would start slow and loud, courtesy of our in-house speaker set, followed by fast-paced folk Garbas and Bollywood fusions.

On special days, the management would arrange for a live evening where a musician duo would take to the stage. So, be-taali would typically mark the first half of the evening, where the young and the old, the reserved and the jolly would all join in for dozens of variations of the traditional step. The second half of the evening comprised tran-taali (steps with three claps), sanedo, and raas, three more sub-genres of Garba. Fortunately or unfortunately, only one of these three styles has caught the limelight of the Indian film industry.

The singing and dancing were accompanied by another important event–a break for midnight snacks. We would all line up for plate after plate of yummy farsaan and nashto, or as the rest of the world calls it, fried eatables and snacks. Mildly hot samosas, flavourful chaat kachoris, and tangy dabelis were relished. Some plates would also make it up the elevators to our sleepy yet anticipating family members. While I spent about twelve years celebrating Navratri the old-school way, what I loved about the famous festival of Gujarat, changed over the years.

Young, Wild and up all Night

For the entire month of September, during my first year in college, I had a mission. It was to get the flavour of Navratri from as many colleges as possible. In my chaotic heritage city, the quieter areas are known to be home to the country’s finest colleges; and these colleges, among many other things, are known to host the best Garba evenings in the city. If you’re not a student at these universities, getting through the gates is no easy task–no money can buy your way in, or at least that’s how it used to be. So, right at the onset of fall, we would all make our annual journey from the cocoon of everyday life to emerging as social butterflies, ringing a friend here and meeting a friend there. “Have you arranged the passes?” and “I’ve made a setting, just show up at 9 pm” would become regular dialogues once more.

Ultimately, the struggle would prove worthy each time. For the entire four-year run of my college, I spent half the Navratri festival evenings playing Garba at CEPT University. My friend Vishv and I would dress up in our prettiest attires with maximum enthusiasm, only to spend six--if not more--hours dancing like the world was ending. CEPT is known for its rustic Navratri vibe, where some of the country’s finest architects and interior designers would show up with their 'plus ones' for an exclusive evening of dance and play. A special mention goes to the fervent lot of students there, who would each year decorate the whole institute with the most creative installations. We always looked forward to them.

As you approached the main ground, which wasn't all that wide by the way, a lady with a voice more mature than she looked, took centre stage. With a pair of manjiras in her hand, she sang a myriad of Gujarati Garba songs, exuding a bucolic charisma like no other. One man on the dhol and another with the shehnai would accompany her and on a symphony of these simple instruments, hundreds of collegians would dance, performing a single step at varying speeds. The Garba would begin slowly and gracefully, and as the moon made its way across the sky, the pace and tempo would be picked up until only a handful of dancers would be left on the dusty floor—still following the beat and without falling out of step. 

As the management would wind up at 2 or 3 am, my friends and I would make our way to the rolling North lawns, lie down with a sigh, and observe stars and planes fly by. The night would seldom be over then. Most of the time, we would end up driving to Manek Chowk, Ahmedabad’s famed street food square, for bites of delicious pav bhaji and butter-lathered dosas. The ride back home on our two-wheelers would be equal parts magical and thrilling as we’d breathe in the festivities-filled air right before dawn. Navigating the almost-empty streets and greeting fellow dancers, was a given, as we made our way home for whatever was left of the night.

Seven years later, I can still relive my Garba days through those fond memories. The hard-earned rounds of NID and their rather elaborate Garba steps, the roaring evenings spent at Karnavati and Rajpath clubs with large groups of friends, and the occasional sojourns to NIFT Gandhinagar with stopovers for cooling falooda or piping hot dal-baati in between. This is an ode to those glorious evenings of singing Gujarati folk songs at the top of our voices, to the sheer generosity of the institutes which let us all in, one way or the other, and to my fellow Garba-fanatic friends who would make sure we all had somewhere to go on each Navratra night. Few things in life match the beauty and glory of being young, untethered, and dancing the night away. I’m glad I got to do it the dry, ethnic, and Amdavadi way.