DJ Trava

I came to Mumbai in August to get my fill of Festivals. There are approximately 4  festivals being celebrated. The Nariyal Poornima, the Raksah Bandhan, the Gokulashtami and the Parsi New Year. My best friend and I booked a room together at one of the Mumbai Hotels for the whole month of August. We plan to party all month long, I just hope Mumbai’s ready for us.

Our first festival to party down with is the Nariyal Poornima. Coconut day which marks the end of the monsoons. Today, though, it seems the monsoons still have a bit more wetness to deliver. That didn’t stop the festivities though, as all of India knows how to get around when it’s a down pour. The Mumbai fisher folks are the one’s who celebrate, they paint their boats all these bright colors and light up divas (little oil lamps) and set them afloat on the waters and intersperse with fresh garlands of flowers. They also decorate their boats with the divas and garlands. So, the ritual part about the festival is the fisher folk break a coconut against the bow of their fishing boats as an offering to a Sea God. I’m not sure of the name of the Sea God, though. But, it’s such a beautiful site to see all the divas and garlands floating on the sea. Once the festival is over, it’s fishing season again. I didn’t know there was a fishing season.

Well the Nariyal Poornima Festival was really fun, but later that same day, we headed off to the Raksha Bandhan Festival. It’s celebrated on the same day as Nariyal Poornima. The ritual here is brothers let their sisters tie a rakhi on their wrists for protection against evil. Not much of a festival, really, but that didn’t stop my friend and I from making it more fun than it was.

Gokulashtami,  or also called Krishna Jayanti, is a two day celebration of the birth of Sri Krishna. This happens not too much after the Nariyal Poornima. The legend goes like this, Krishan was born in the dark half of the month, at the darkest hour of the night. Krishna is one of Vishnu’s most glorious incarnations which brought in joy and security to all of humanity. The festival is quite elaborate and there’s plenty of partying going on everywhere in Mumbai. My friend and I hardly made it back to our hotel room to sleep.

Finally, the month is almost over and our last festival is the Parsi New Year. I don’t think it needs any explanation. But, it does commemorates the day that Shahenshahi Zoroastrian community landed in India. This festival went into September.  We hardly remembered any of it, we celebrated too much.

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