COVID-19 impact variation in rural and urban mindsift: Navratri prespective

 

After a fearsome battle of goddess Durga and Mahisasur, with the defeat of the devil, resulting in the celebration of Navratri festival. The festival is been celebrated over decades from the time one can trace.

Human on individual level follows a similar pattern, which over time becomes in-voluntary as over years you have been doing it continuously, we can improvise it but can never be changed. Navratri celebration can be considered in a similar light, but has urban and rural has a different approach towards it, especially due to COVID-19.

The year 2020, can be considered as COVID year, India after the emergency has never witnessed such extended lockdown. We Indians have understood, feared, and still incorporating social distancing, but with the second largest population, it seems a bit challenging.

Sparkling headlight, the sheer number of devotee walking from one pandal to another was a mesmerizing view during Navratri, irrespective of the pandal location. Most of us might have got time to reflect on the second common thing in all the pandals, i.e., the various stalls. The stalls were like mini-tourist destination, men-women, young-old, all used to enjoy the delicious serving of the stalls, families used to skip their eve meal and dinner as stalls provided a plethora of dishes, then a 5-star hotel could provide at such prize. Small, big, single person handled stalls provided various household to personal utilities, all the rides the kids loved to watch and relentlessly ask their parents to let them enjoy it. The ballons, the detergent-water bubble, and children running after them to hold it, the continuous chanting of mantras by pandits over the speaker, families sitting over the grass, long rows of devotees to have a glimpse of Maa Durga.

For 9 days the vicinity around pandal looked like a country, and as if the pandal is home to the countrymen.

After unlocking India celebrates its first big festival, I tried putting my views on how COVID has changed/vanished such a mini-tourist destination, people's attitude to visit pandals, and most importantly how urban and semi-rural, and semi-urban areas witnessed a contrast. While cycling with my friends Javed and Shafkat Ali, we covered two areas, i.e., Bhilai and Durg (Chhattisgarh) which are not more than 4-5 km apart. I came up with the following observation considering the COVID.

 

1. Rural, semi-rural, and semi-urban attitude towards Navratri pooja

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• We Indians have deep-rooted longevity towards mythological stories, and we are lucky to witness all the god and goddesses through celebrations.
• I witnessed a contrast in terms of the physical presence of devotees in the pandals. The scarcity of devotees with a plethora on another side.
• Has the urban community taken social distancing a bit more seriously and end up staying home. On the other hand, the semi-rural and semi-urban community remained to visit pandals.
• I was intrigued by the general feeling is visiting pandals a mode of entertainment for one of society, contrary to the so-called brighter end has a lot of other ways?
• We even witnessed a decrease in major pandals in Bhilai, compared to the previous year, but Durg did not witness any reduction.
• The vastness and mesmerizing creativity work on pandals have a halt in both areas.

 

   2. The mini-tourist destination

 

 

 

• In both areas, we witnessed a scarcity of stalls more prevalent in Bhilai.
• A usual notation, people reach the tourist destination and not the other way around. Well, here the mini-tourist destination follows the people, both the number of stalls and foot-fall of devotes are directly proportional to each other.
• In Bhilai, we hardly noticed more than two stalls per pandal we visited, In Durg, the view was entirely different, as you can have a look over the picture we took.
• The 9 days of Navratri used to be a golden opportunity for such stalls and rides to earn a good income, but this COVID pandemic not only changed our view on how we now look to such stalls but even the income of the mini-tourist destination has come to a status quo.

Please it is a request if possible visit pandals with wearing the mask and carrying a sanitizer and if you feel the stalls are hygienic have a bit, it'll bring happiness to the staller, and they might not go home with empty hope.