Arrey ATC left sshit i was little late wanted to ask her the significance of Mahalaya festival.
But i googled it for my knowledge purposes.
Goddess durga visits her Maika( Mother's home.. why isnt it called father's home.. so matriarchal) Anyways at her parents home, she is welcomed and prepared all her favorite dishes... On the last day of the ritual only married women participate in a special ritual called Sindhoor Khela. Where married women participate in smearing each other with sindoor on Vijayadashami.
According to commonly held belief, if a woman plays Sindur Khela by following the proper custom, she will never be widowed. Sindur Khela symbolizes the power of womanhood in protecting her husband from all evil.
Here is what baffles me... instead of celebrating women power... we are performing a ritual which is dependent on her marital ties. As unmarried, widowed or divorced are not allowed to participate. Why arent these ladies important for the society. Am i missing something.
I hope ATC will support eradicating such a regressive ritual as well.
The ritual has been criticized for being patriarchal in nature, because of the over emphasis on the married status of the goddess as well as the women.😲 Bengali Hindu girls grow up seeing the married ladies in their family participate in the playful ritual, which creates among them a sense of life being incomplete without getting married. 🤔
Critics feel that this can create a regressive impact on young women.
Oops.
That is not why Mahalaya is celebrated my misinformed wikipedia read friend. The whole Goddess Durga coming to her mother's house etc is just a symbolic gesture of how the city treats the goddess as a daughter. Mahalaya is celebrated by doing Tarpan, an offering to the Ganges to remember our lost parents, grandparents and ancestors. It is a day to remember and celebrate the life our ancestors have led by offering food and water to them. Everything else that you have copied and pasted from wikipedia are folklores.
Also yes Sindoor Khela was definitely regressive before for not being inclusive but with times everything has changed. Sindoor Khela is no longer just practiced by married women. Even unmarried women and married/unmarried men now take part in Sindoor Khela and celebrate it as Holi. And Sindoor Khela and Karwa Chauth cannot vlbe compared because unlike KC, Sindoor Khela is not a religious ritual, it is just an extended activity of the final debi boron before the visarjan of the idol. And I don't think ATC would have to support eradicating such regressive practices because it has already been eradicated to a great extent and progress is on for more. There are so many organizations working in Calcutta now who for the last five years have been working towards making the festival more inclusive by including widows, transgenders and sex workers to be a part of the Sindoor Khela festivities and the city pandals have welcomed them with open arms and now there are also pujas organized by sex workers and transgenders in Calcutta and many theme pujas bring out the hostility faced by them in their pandals. There have also been efforts to make Puja pandals accessible to the blind, making them autistic friendly and many more things to make a festival that was started in the 1600's as a regressive and non inclusive festival by the zamindars where no lower caste men and women were allowed and etc and then for it to transform over the years to the present times where it is one of the biggest festivals and roadside art installation in the country where people from all castes, religion, beliefs and what not in Calcutta and from all over India come to attend and have fun for those five days...that is how a festival should be IMO...change with times to make it less regressive and more inclusive.
But well one would only know if they actually ATTEND the festival and see the ground reality than sitting at home and copy/pasting paragraphs from wikipedia 🤷♂️