CM Mamata flags off Christmas festivities
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the 13th edition of the Kolkata Christmas Festival at Allen Park late this afternoon.
By a strange coincidence Maha Shivrati, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell on the same day (14 February). While fasting Shivbhakts made a round of shivalayas, boys and girls exchanged love greetings, with students of Hindu College gathering around the “Virgin Tree” on the campus to honour this year’s Damdami Mai by proxy, actress Jacqueline Fernandez.
Meanwhile, Christians flocked to churches to usher in the Lenten season that marks the beginning of the 40-day fast before Easter. Their foreheads smeared with the ashes of the palms distrubuted at last year’s Palm Sunday, they were reminded by priests of the biblical exhortation, “Dust thou art and unto dust thou shall return”.
Another interesting ritual was the one followed by the Brahmakumaris. There was band, baja and barat (of devotees) but no bride and bridegroom. Only a painting of Prajapati Shiva and a man posing like the Lord with an ash-smeared body, matted locks and a trishul, who went with the procession seated on a rath.
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The Brahmakumaris came all the way from Bharat Nagar, opposite Hari Nagar Bus Depot, dressed in white saris, with Priyayanka Behn, perhaps the most popular Brahmakumari, leading them.
The “barat”, with drums beating and a band playing devotional music, converged on the Grover home in Mayapuri, where there is a Rajyoga meditation centre. The processionists were welcomed with water bottles and rose petals as the Brahmakumaris and Brahmakumars performed the ritual of changing of the sect’s red and yellow striped flag that will flutter till the next Maha Shivratri.
After a round of the colony, during which the leader greeted one and all in Shiva’s name by waving her hands, the “barat” headed, with more flags, for other Rajyoga meditation centres. Surely a memorable Maha Shivratri, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday threesome, which probably may not be witnessed again this century.
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