i was at the versova koli seafood a few days ago, to cover it for mumbai mirror online. and this display in front of one of the stalls caught my eye. now krishna isn’t usually associated with the fishing community. what’s even more surprising is this particular form of krishna, with the arm raised up is referred to as shri nathji, and it’s a popular vaishnavaite sect amongst gujaratis, marwaris, kutchis and some sindhis; with the main temple at nathdwara, near udaipur in rajasthan. the worship of shri nathji is quite limited to these groups, and it’s rare to find the icon anywhere other than vaishnav havelis. i wonder what’s the connection between the link between the kolis and shri nathji.
mindless mumbai wishes all its readers a joyous and peaceful year ahead. may all your adpirations be attained, and may we all be more truer to each other and to ourselves. peace.
today is rakhi / raksha bandhan. for those who didn’t get the last three words, here are a few links about the festival: a, b and c. (the links btw, are the first ones that google threw up, i have no idea about the content on those pages.) as with most of the festivals that we celebrate, there are many adaptations, permutations, explanations etc with this one too. conventionally, the ‘ritual’ involves a sister tying a thread on to her brother’s hand (raksha - protection; bandhan - bond), it’s supposed to symbolise the sister praying for the brother’s well being, and the brother in turn ‘protecting’ his sister. speaking of adaptations, one part of my family has a tradition of daughter’s tying rakhis to their father
what it boils down to for us, is to spend a few hours with the cousins, whom we other wise rarely meet; get a couple of rakhis, while hoping that none of them are outlandish (the simpler ones with just a few beads, and a monochrome red colour thread are way nicer!), have a hearty breakfast and get going with the day.
and, havelis deck up the lord, with rakhis on his hand too. btw, i didn’t post yesterday, but what i want to do the next independence day is to borrow some one’s camera phone, and click a photo in the haveli at juhu. the gods wear the indian flag colours on independence day!
everyone loves a good surprise, don’t you?
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photo id: 0025
today and tomorrow is holi (a hindu festival of colours), and all the shops are stocked up with water guns, water balloons and of course the powdered colours. inspite of all the new colours, i think gulal still works best
(gulal is a shade of pink / red)
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wishing everyone a fantastic holi!
these kids were reharsing yesterday in the college’s auditorium. they had their finale today.. all of them are dressed up as kolis, the fishing community that originally inhabited mumbai.
