How Navratri (Garba) Celebration Started in IIT Patna
The Story of how I conquered all and organized first ever Navratri Garba Night Event at IIT Patna
The Navratri is a festival celebrated with special form of dance to worship goddess Amba. The festival is of eight days where people gather at large open space, do traditional worship ceremony to goddess Amba and play Garba/Dandiya on folk songs. The type of music & songs are also called Garba, which is different than other traditional Indian folk songs. The celebration normally starts after 6:00 PM and can go till 2:00 AM during those eight days. In India, the festival is celebrated mainly at states in west i.e. Gujarat, Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh.
I was born in Gujarat and being Gujarati, Navratri is the festival we celebrate at fullest. It is one of our main and iconic festival. The Garba is signature dance form of Gujarat and we play it on our every music/dance event. Be it wedding or any music party. We are kind of crazy and proud of it.
Now, IIT Patna resides in eastern part of India where Navratri is not celebrated. Being the festival of music & dance, Navratri has been most favourite festival among college students and almost every college in Gujarat organizes one day Navratri festival in college campus as Cultural Activity. Not limited to Gujarat, festival is also celebrated in many colleges across India. So, I took it on my self to give IIT Patna students the experience of this amazing festival and start a new cultural trend of celebrating Navratri. And here the story begins…
I started thinking about organizing Navratri. First of all we need open space and second is large music systems. Now because of those rainy days, I have to pick the indoor place, I can not let unexpected rain ruin whole event. At that time, IIT Patna was in its transit campus with very limited space and mostly small halls. By considering all options, I finalised my choice on our Music room which had enough space to accommodate people for whole event. As I Settled for the event venue, next thing was music system. I thought to get speakers from someone inside the hostel. Having initial plan in my mind, next thing is to get permission from institute for organizing cultural event.
So, I went to one professor who was given responsibility of managing cultural activity inside campus. He sent me to hostel warden as I was planning to organize it in boys hostels campus (The Music Room was beside one of the boys hostel building and considered part of boys hostel). He went ahead to advise me to not organize such regional event in campus. He gave me so many reasons for not doing this event in campus such as if I give you permission than everyone will come and ask me to celebrate their regional events. Another reason was fund, which was limited and could not be sanctioned for all such events. It was hard to argue with him and convincing someone is not a skill I was good at. So I came back dishearten.
I totally ignored the challenge from institute bureaucracy. I needed advise from someone who had good experience of handling all this, someone who knows how system works and what are the issues I had to resolve to pull this out. Luckily, I had good relations with many culturally active B.Tech. final year students of that time. I went to meet one of them.
I told him what I wanted to do, what was my plan and how things did not work out with faculty in-charge. First thing he liked my idea and told me to go ahead with it. Next he told me everything I should know. For organizing any event inside the campus with college resources, first thing I need is permission letter signed by concerned faculty. The permission letter must have all the small details about event. Now what are the reasons for which faculty might hesitate or reject to sign permission letter? The first issue was the timing of event which I suggested initially to be 7:00 PM to 12:00 AM. because girls can not stay for such a long time in boys hostel for any event without the presence of any faculty. Now why would any faculty want to waste their time for the cause of an event? The second issue was fund. The funds for cultural activities were limited and mostly preoccupied by other students for different cultural activities. Now why would someone cut their funds to support my event? The third issue was interest among students to actually attend the event. Majority of our student base was from eastern part of India and Navratri is not such famous festival for them. How to ensure that I gather good crowd out of lazy students to make event successful? The forth issue was the Garba dance form, which hardly few people knew. If they don’t know the Garba, How will they play it?
All these reason were enough to give up my desire of organizing Navratri, but I was just not ready to let it go. I still wanted to give it a shot. I was already under the fire by my guide for being too much involved in cultural activities. He was concerned about my focus on academic research. So I must play low profile through out the event.
So, for the first problem, the major issue was timings. If girls had to stay after 7:30 PM at the event than faculty had to be involved. I drafted new permission letter and listed the event timings from 6:00 PM to 7:30 PM. With this, no faculty had to stay at venue for event. We all know, how much we follow strict event timings. I just has to be correct on paper. Nailed it.
Now, the next issue was with funding. I don’t wanted to fight too much with other cultural student committee members and decided to do door-to-door collection. I did not needed lot of money and I was confident that what ever I would be able to collect with help of my friends would be enough.
With newly drafted permission letter which had new timings and independent fund collection strategy, I was ready to visit faculty in-charge again. But still there was one problem. I was not good at convincing people. I wanted to get this permission letter passed anyhow so I decided to ask one of our senior PhD student to help me with this. The senior PhD student, Sangita madam was fond of cultural activities and had record of winning first prize in dance competition of our every annual cultural event. She had good reputation among faculties also and she was not someone easy to take down. I had previously expressed my desire of organizing Navratri event and she also told me to ask for any help I need from her. So I explained here everything and she agreed to join me. Now having Sangita madam by my side, my victory was ensured in faculty office. With her pitching, explaining and convincing skills, our permission letter was signed. I could not be more happy on that day.
After I was granted permission, it was time to focus on publicity, fundraising and management. Before I start fund raising, I must make sure that people are well aware about the event. So, coming down to last two challenges, how to attract people for event & how to teach them Garba. After lots of thinking, I came up with idea of organizing Garba practice session. Best for publicity and people will start getting taste of Garba. Unfortunately, Garba is not the skill I am very good at. So, I got one of my another Gujarati friend on board. His name is Pradip. He was really good at all kinds of Garba & Dandiya dance styles. He agreed to lead practice session. So, all set. I sent email across the campus and invited people for 2 days Garba practice session.
The challenge is still not resolved. I still needs to get them to the music room for practice session. First year students at IIT Patna were very enthusiastic and always ready to explore new stuffs into their newly joined college. I also have made good reputation with many of them who were lot into cultural activities. I put my bet on them and called up few girls from first year to come for practice session and also ask their friends to join. I knew that they will show up because of a two reasons. First they were called by senior and second was something new for them to explore. So the practice day came. I setup the place. Arranged 2.1 loud speaker from one friend at hostel. Finally, many girls and few boys turn up for the practice session. The practice session went awesome. Everyone enjoyed a lot. I asked them to spread the word and bring their friends also for next day session. The next day crowd was even bigger. These time students from 2nd and 3rd year also joined. Many of them were from cultural activities clubs and they also enjoyed the practice session.
Second day, at the end of practice session. We were all sitting just outside the Music Room. Tired and enjoying evening breeze. Then few boys came to us and told me that
“Bhaiya, ye event to hogi aur bohot jabardast hogi. Aap bas batao kya karna he. Ham sab apki help karenge…”
The power of that moment was so strong. Something I can not forget for my lifetime.
Organizing the practice session was master stroke. It went extremely well. My publicity and people gathering issue was almost solved. After practice session, I was sure of good crows for the event. Now I also have so many people to help me organize Navratri.
Fundraising was the next step in these quest. So, I asked them to create small teams and collect fund from all 4 boys hostels. I took charge of my hostel and left rest 3 hostel on them. Also asked few girls to do collection from girls hostel. On the same night, we started going door-to-door to collect fund. Most of the students contributed good money. In my case, I went door-to-door and asked them for donations and invited for event. Normally they ask me how much they should give and I tell them that next room people gave 50/- rs so you can also give same. Not every door was same. Many people told that they are not interested and shut their doors. Many told that it is not their event or religion. Still many gave more than what I asked them. The core-team, we all gujjus contributed 1000/- rs. After finishing our fund raising campaign, we all gathered to count the total donation. And we collected around 12,000/- rs. We just can’t believe. That much money was more than enough to make all the arrangement for the event. We were event able to put “prasad”(Worship Food) for everyone on our list.
Fundraising also went highly successful. Now we need to manage Good Music System, Worship items and Prasad.
One more thing was in my list. “The Dandiya Sticks”. How to find this Garba specific item in the place where people don’t play Garba at all. And I also needed them in good quantity. I asked sangita mam about it. I also talked with my roommate, Mayank who was from Patna only. They suggested me one place far away. The place was actually a drama costume renting service. I took Mayank with me to that place. The owner, lady was a very strict and hard negotiator. She told me that “Dandiya Sticks” only go in the complement of dresses. You can’t have them independently in such quantity. We played our student card. Requested them a lot and she agreed. She was lot more concerned about us missing or breaking Dandiya sticks so she set a price for each Dandiya stick if not returned in proper condition. After surviving that deal, we managed to get 50 pairs of Dandiya Sticks.
Now, coming to arranging proper music system. Pradip took this task on him. We first inquired with the person from whom our college normally rent large music systems on all major events. Their quotation was way more than what we expected. If we take their service, we might need to cut large budget from other things. But Pradip had some local contact. Pradip went with them and closed the deal. They were offering more stuff with less money in comparison to our first option. We gave them event schedule and address. Booked them for an evening.
Having enough budget for “Prasad”, we decided to put “Laddu” & “Kheer” in the list. We ordered “Laddu” in good quantity from the sweet shop near our campus. For “Kheer”, we asked our hostel mess manager to prepare it. He gave us list of items to prepare Kheer. On the day of event, we went in morning to buy all stuffs and delivered to Hostel kitchen mess for preparing Kheer.
The girls from M.Tech. 1st year were also very handy. They also helped us in every possible front to make event successful. Now, I was never good with worship ceremony and rituals. So, I asked M.Tech. girls to arrange nice portrait of goddess Amba and all other items required for rituals. You can see all the ritual items and arrangements for worship in the first picture of this article.
Finally, the day of Navratri event came. The day we were working so hard for. We started preparing the event venue. First, we cleaned the place properly. Cornered all the music instruments and put clothes on them. Arranged the table in the center of the room to setup portrait of goddess Amba and other worship items. Our music system also came on time. I was asked to make arrangement for ritual & Garba music. The “prasad” was kept on other corner for distribution. I also asked someone from institute photography club to take pictures at event. Everything is set to perfection and now we are waiting for people to turn up and start our event.
We had good amount of gathering by 7:00 PM and we started our event. What happened next was nothing but the Magic for me. We started with Aarti, the traditional hindu worship rituals. Every one took their turn to pay their worship. Like the one depicted in picture below.
And it was time to start Garba & Dandiya. Everyone started to participate in the Garba. The moments we captured in the photos are posted below in this Article. So much enthusiastic, energy and happiness. As I told, it all felt like nothing but Magic.
At that night, everyone said that we gone organize this event every year. And they did for at least next 2 years.
This whole story is one of the most important event of my life. For me, it is like proof of concept. If you are determine enough to achieve something, does not matter how difficult the path is, you can always get it. We just have to be stubborn to what we need and we can surely achieve it.
For now, please enjoy the clicks from the event.
P.S. : The picture qualities are bad because we lost all good quality pictures. I asked someone to do event photography with institute camera. When I went to him after event, he told me that someone else has taken institute camera for other purpose and probably deleted all pictures of our event. Than I need to collect pictures from other students who took them from their smart phones.
