People prefer pools over crowded ghats

Lucknow: For this year’s Chhath puja, many people are opting for pools and tubs to worship Sun and avoid the crowded ghats of Gomti.

More than the festival, it is a way of meeting friends, neighbours and relatives for Arun who organizes Chhath in his house-garden in Eldeco and invites over 200 people. “It is the only festival in the entire year when all can come uninvited. Even those who don’t belong to the Bhojpuri or Maithil community make sure to come and get prasad,” he said. He himself has been celebrating it for the past 15 years.

He cleans the rectangular pool in his garden every year before Chhath and paints it before filling it with fresh water and gangajal. Two of his neighbours, who are from Ballia and Buxar respectively, join him at the pool for the puja.

This year, Eldeco’s puja will also have mayor Dinesh Sharma as a guest. “Only a day is left for the main puja which is on Sunday-Monday and we have to make prasad and seating arrangements for 500 people. Books will also be distributed to school children,” said an organizing member.

Another such celebration will be held at a bigger pool of Sun temple in LDA Colony, Kanpur Road. The 15-year-old pool in the temple premises witnesses over 1,000 people every year, most of who belong to the Maithil community. Organisers Chaturbhuj Mishra and Arun Kumar Thakur said every year the number of devotees increases by at least 20. “When we began the puja at our mandir-ghat, we were only three families. The number has now shot up to a thousand individuals,” said Thakur.

The committee has made a permanent pool inside the temple premises which they fill up with water every year just for the puja. “I used to go to Kudiya ghat earlier but since I shifted to LDA, this became my puja point as the water here is pure and clean to dip in,” said Puja Mishra.

“Tradition says we ought to go to the river bank for the puja but performing it with fewer people, and those too of my community pleases me more. That’s why I have been doing it here,” said Neelu Jha Pathak who used to go to Darbhanga earlier.

Devotees took bath and ate gud-kheer (rice pudding made with sugarcane juice) for nahayi-khayi on Friday. While some went to the banks for a dip, others chose to remain home and take a shower before the main puja which falls on Sunday-Monday. “I will take a dip on Sunday-Monday puja. On nahayi-khayi, I prefer a shower over river,” said Gargi Jha, a freelance artist.