Last week most of us were celebrating Valentine’s Day, but it’s not the only celebration of love at this time of year.
Dr Neeta Pramanik would like to share with us a little about Saraswati Puja:
Saraswati Puja organise in the moment of Vashant Panchami, it is a festival of Hindus that marks the beginning of preparations for the spring season. It is the festival dedicated to the goddess who is their goddess of knowledge, language, music, and all arts. She symbolizes creative energy and creative power in all its forms, including longing and love. The season and festival also celebrate the agricultural fields’ ripening with yellow flowers of mustard crop, which Hindus associate with Saraswati’s favorite color. That is why traditionally people dress in yellow saris or shirts or accessories and share yellow-colour snacks and sweets.
This is the day when parents sit with their young kids and encourage them to write their first words with their fingers and sometimes create music together. Educational institutes arrange prayers and pujas in the morning to seek the blessing of the goddess. Poetic and musical gatherings are held in some organisations in reverence for Saraswati.
Sometimes we make fun by calling the Puja as Bengali Valentine’s Day as it is organised in February or early March and young girls and boys from different educational institutes meet each other for the first time and finds their partners during the Saraswati Puja celebration.
