South Indians celebrate festival with Golu dolls

BHOPAL: The mud doll festival-Golu or Kolu or Bommai Kolu as is more popular in southern India was observed by the small South Indian community settled in Bhopal in the nine days of Navratri.
On Thursday, families celebrated Ayudh Puja, as part of the festival, wherein paraphernalia related to one's work is given an invocation. Hence, 45-year-old Rathika Vaidyanathan offered prayers to goddesses as well as her husband's laptop."In the south, we offer prayers to books of accounts and in villages the wooden plough is worshipped on eight day of Navratri. Here, I placed my husband's laptop along with my Kolu dolls," she said.
Golu, is a festival wherein south Indian families exhibit various dolls and figurines in odd (usually 7, 9, or 11) numbered tiers and offer different prasadams for nine days. Explaining the significance, Rathika said, "In olden times, for irrigation purposes, desilting of water was important for removal of mud. The clay is thus used to make dolls and it has become an occasion for getting together and checking out what dolls other households made. We generally bring these dolls as part of our marriage gifts and pray year after year".
Rathika said different themed coloured mud dolls are available in southern India. "I have a set of dashavataram dolls depicting 10 avataars of lord Vishnu that I got when I married 25 years ago. I've kept it ever since and take it out only during Golu festival," she said.
53-year-old Savitri Chandrasekhar, a banking professional, also organised Golu at her home. "We can't visit each other on all nine days and so we do it just once . We draw kolams (paintings) on wet floor, sing and the host gives gifts at the end of it," she said.