First day of Navratri (this year October 12) kicks off a festival season in Maharashtra that ends only with the wedding of Tulsi (this year Nov 24),long after Diwali.
During my schooldays at Miraj, courtyard of Ambabai temple used to hold annual fair. The most attractive objects for me there were kites and clay figurines of Maratha warriors. Another attraction was the godess herself who would change her carrier every day during the nine day festival.
George Orwell on his schooldays "Such, Such Were The Joys":
"…In a way it is only within the last decade that I have really thought over my schooldays, vividly though their memory has haunted me. Nowadays, I believe, it would make very little impression on me to see the place again, if it still exists. And if I went inside and smelled again the inky, dusty smell of the big schoolroom, the rosiny smell of the chapel, the stagnant smell of the swimming bath and the cold reek of the lavatories, I think I should only feel what one invariably feels in revisiting any scene of childhood:
How small everything has grown, and how terrible is the deterioration in myself!"
And finally Marathi poet B S Mardhekar (बा. सी. मर्ढेकर) on his days bygone:
किती तरी दिवसांत
नाहीं चांदण्यात गेलों;
कितीतरी दिवसांत
नाहीं नदीत डुंबलो.
खुल्या चांदण्याची ओढ़
आहे माझी ही जुनीच;
आणि वाहत्या पाण्याची
शीळ ओळखीची तीच.
केव्हा तरी चांदण्यात
पुन्हा जाईन निर्भय;
गांवाकाठच्या नदीत
होईन मी जलमय.
आज अंतरांत भीती
खुल्या चांदण्याची थोड़ी;
आणि नदीचा प्रवाह
अंगावर कांटा काढी.
बरा म्हणून हा इथें
दिवा पारवा पारयाचा;
बरी तोतरया नळाची
शिरी धार, मुखी ऋचा.
Artist: Whitney Darrow,Jr. The New Yorker 17 July 1948
During my schooldays at Miraj, courtyard of Ambabai temple used to hold annual fair. The most attractive objects for me there were kites and clay figurines of Maratha warriors. Another attraction was the godess herself who would change her carrier every day during the nine day festival.
George Orwell on his schooldays "Such, Such Were The Joys":
"…In a way it is only within the last decade that I have really thought over my schooldays, vividly though their memory has haunted me. Nowadays, I believe, it would make very little impression on me to see the place again, if it still exists. And if I went inside and smelled again the inky, dusty smell of the big schoolroom, the rosiny smell of the chapel, the stagnant smell of the swimming bath and the cold reek of the lavatories, I think I should only feel what one invariably feels in revisiting any scene of childhood:
How small everything has grown, and how terrible is the deterioration in myself!"
And finally Marathi poet B S Mardhekar (बा. सी. मर्ढेकर) on his days bygone:
किती तरी दिवसांत
नाहीं चांदण्यात गेलों;
कितीतरी दिवसांत
नाहीं नदीत डुंबलो.
खुल्या चांदण्याची ओढ़
आहे माझी ही जुनीच;
आणि वाहत्या पाण्याची
शीळ ओळखीची तीच.
केव्हा तरी चांदण्यात
पुन्हा जाईन निर्भय;
गांवाकाठच्या नदीत
होईन मी जलमय.
आज अंतरांत भीती
खुल्या चांदण्याची थोड़ी;
आणि नदीचा प्रवाह
अंगावर कांटा काढी.
बरा म्हणून हा इथें
दिवा पारवा पारयाचा;
बरी तोतरया नळाची
शिरी धार, मुखी ऋचा.
Artist: Whitney Darrow,Jr. The New Yorker 17 July 1948