Ireland: Indian community celebrates Navratri with Garba and Dandiya

Navratri festival is a Hindu festival that spans nine nights and is celebrated to worship Goddess Durga. The festival is celebrated all over India with joy and fervour. The spirit of the festival travelled across the world and the Indian community in Ireland celebrated the nine-day festival of Navratri with traditional Garba, Dandiya and Gujarati music.

Indian diaspora in Ireland celebrate Navratri

Indians living in Parkside, Dublin 13 in Ireland celebrated the nine-day festival of Navratri as they dressed in colourful traditional chaniya cholis and sarees played Dandiya as an offering to Goddess Durga. Indian Kids of the community were seen keenly participating in the event were extremely excited to learn about the culture and rituals of the origin Country.

People living in Ireland for quite some time feel that celebrating Indian cultural festivals in a home away from the motherland helps them to inculcate traditional culture and beliefs in the younger generation who are being raised in Ireland. The traditional Garba dance is performed generally during the evenings of the nine-day-long festival, which finally culminates into Dussehra.

A man was seen doing the aarti and other kids were seen enthusiastically taking part in the festivities and even performing a special performance. Take a look at the pictures below.

Navratri, which translates from Sanskrit as 'nine nights' falls during the early Autumn. During those nine nights and ten days, the Hindu Goddess, Durga, is celebrated in each of her nine manifestations otherwise known as avatars. The Hindu festival also marks triumph over evil. Throughout the festival period, each night is spent with congregational prayers, followed by music and dance.

Celebrations of the festival include worshipping nine Goddesses in nine days, stage decorations, recital of the legend, enacting of the story, and chanting of the scriptures of Hinduism. The nine days are also a major crop season cultural event, such as competitive design and staging of pandals, a family visit to these pandals, and the public celebration of classical and folk dances of Hindu culture. Hindu devotees often celebrate Navaratri by fasting. The festival also starts the preparation for Diwali, the festival of lights, which is celebrated twenty days after Vijayadashami.

(Image: Republic World)