Its the time of Dasara-the 9 days festival, ending with Vijayadashami on the 10th day. Last Saturday, I got a chance to visit houses where dolls or gollu are arranged and decorated. This is an old tradition in Bangalore/Mysore area, and nowadays there are very few people who continue this tradition. This is in fact a part of the Dasara festival/competitions in Mysore. A panel of judges visit the entrants' houses and evaluates. The best show put up wins a prize!The dolls are generally arranged in a step like fashion, with mostly dolls/idols of gods like
AshtaLakshmi, Rama Seetha and Lakshmana, Hanuman and the like........There are others also which are on themes; like a typical village with fields and farmers working in them, a hillock with a temple on top, a recreation of Kailasa parvatha, the abode of Lord Shiva. With more modern ones; like the cartoon world, a barbie world, a cricket or any sports stadium....etc.This year there is a huge recreation of the famous Amarnath pilgrim put up in Mysore for the Dasara celebrations.
In my mom's childhood days, they had this tradition in their house, which was continued for some time by my aunt also. I remember visiting my aunt's house in the Dasara vacation when my cousins would decorate the steps made by wooden stools/benches and arrange the dolls. They never allowed me or my younger sister to touch them, as they were porcelain or mud dolls and were very fragile. They feared that we would drop them or damage them!If arranging all the dolls in a creative fashion is a challenge, its maintenance and taking care of these fragile things after Dasara is another!
Children visited many houses to see the dolls and talked about them. The lady of the house prepared something or the other as prasada and offered it to the children who came to see the doll arrangement. The prasada is usually the kaalu usali made of different pulses everyday or anything sweet like avalakki. Those were the days; nowadays nobody goes to see the arrangement! In fact the lady whose house we visited was a neighbour's friend, and she was more than happy to receive us and show the effort she had put in! She was even heard mumbling that these days nobody just hops from house to house and come only on invitation.
Children visited many houses to see the dolls and talked about them. The lady of the house prepared something or the other as prasada and offered it to the children who came to see the doll arrangement. The prasada is usually the kaalu usali made of different pulses everyday or anything sweet like avalakki. Those were the days; nowadays nobody goes to see the arrangement! In fact the lady whose house we visited was a neighbour's friend, and she was more than happy to receive us and show the effort she had put in! She was even heard mumbling that these days nobody just hops from house to house and come only on invitation.
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