New Delhi: Holi is arriving along with different cultural celebrations of the festival. It arrives in the Hindu month of Phalgun, that is March.
It is usually spent smearing colours and splashing coloured water on each other. Seven days prior to the festival, the Mithila group of Delhi-NCR and Palam, “Sakhi Bahinpa Mithilani Group” celebrated Holi with their sakhis in Dwarka. The group gathered together at 2 pm in a DDA park in Sector 13, Dwarka on Saturday.
The ladies of Mithila are called Mithilani. Mithilani groups are women-only groups that aim to honour the activities of Mithila culture. With time, many people have lost touch with their culture. To pass on the knowledge and values of their society, the group conducts such activities/events whenever they get the chance to.
The event was a beautiful gathering of more than 20 women. I say ‘beautiful’ because the ladies were dressed in brilliant traditional clothing with a sindoor tika on their foreheads. They commenced the event with a group song “Jai Jai Bhairavi”, a song to commemorate Maa Kali, the Goddess of Preservation.
For the next two hours, they played songs from Mithila and danced to it, welcoming more of their sakhis as the event carried on. Specialty of this event was the different cultural food, which included Assami, Mithila, south-Indian dishes and many more. Here’s a list of items I got a taste of at the event:
- Palak matar ke pakode
- Besan ka dhokla
- Chhole sabzi
- Bhaji
- Idli and chutney
- Aaloo sabzi
- Masala Chane
- Puri and stuffed parantha
- Matar rice
- Maal puey
- Tiny suji puri with sweet nariyal stuffing
- Raita