Remembering 'Dasara' of my Childhood

Revival of a tradition :  This traditional arrangement of dolls was seen in

a relative’s house in Bengaluru.The arrangement indicated that the house

was ready for the celebration of the ten day ‘Dasara’ festivals. I was glad

to see that. During my childhood, we were used to seeing this set up in

almost every house. Unfortunately as we grew up, we witnessed the decline

of this elaborate arrangement and saw in its place, just the placement of a

doll or two on a shelf or a table as a symbol of ‘Dasara’. 

Since the last few years I have been seeing this again in many houses. The markets

and the surrounding streets are teeming with dolls used for the purpose. I am happy

about this revival and hope the tradition survives.

As I understand, the dussehra celebrations are held to rejoice the victory of good

over evil. The killing of the demon Mahishasura by Durgadevi and the killing of

Ravana by Sri Rama. 

In the City of Mysore in Karnataka, which is well known for its Dussehra

celebrations, the religious ceremonies of Maharajas ended with the Maharaja

going in a procession on an elephant - ‘Jamboo Savari’ -  on Vijayadashami day,

to the ‘Banni’ tree and worshipping the tree. I understand the pandavas

(of Mahabharata) had tied their weapons to the ‘Banni’ tree while going on their

exile and recovered them before going to war, which they won. Hence it was

considered auspicious to worship the tree after the worship of the weapons on

the day of  ‘Ayudha pooja’ on ‘Navami’  - a day before Vijayadashami. 

But, as a child, I wasn’t aware of any of these aspects of our ‘Dasara’. ‘Dasara’ for

us was a two weeks holiday for the school, and the excitement of arranging the dolls.

Hence, in Southern Karnataka the festival was popularly known as ‘Gombe Habba’. 

‘Gombe’ means a doll and ‘habba’ is the word for a festival in kannada. 

There is no set pattern for the arrangement of these dolls. But the two dolls - a male

and female - called ‘Pattada gombe’, which you see at the center of the topshelf are

a must. They are almost always made of Rosewood, black in colour.  and they are

always dressed as you see in this picture. No exceptions. The male with a kurta and

headgear and the female clad in a saree. The rest of the dolls and the arrangement

is left to one’s imagination. 

This arrangement could be of just a few dolls and toys, placed on a table, as it used to

be in our house or a huge arrangement in shelves of 10-15 feet long, starting from the

roof and ending on the floor. About 8-10 rows. The arrangement could be individual clay

dolls, wooden dolls, common toys or elaborate arrangements of mythological happenings,

historical happenings, common day to day happenings so on and so forth - left to one’s

imagination as I mentioned earlier. 

In some households  the shelves were set up weeks in advance, mud spread on the floor

in front of the shelves and seeds of ‘ragi’ (millet) or ‘wheat’ were sown in patches. The

crop would be ready in a week or ten days and a lovely green field would be set !

Sometimes a few small plants would be planted to create realistic arrangements of

parks, or forests and deers and tigers would be roaming. It was always a deep placed

longing of mine to make such an arrangement in our house. A longing which remains

unfulfilled like a few others in my life ! 

The idols of Goddess Saraswati along with some books and an idol of Durga would

be installed on the shelves on the 7th and 8th day respectively for worship. And some

weapons - usually a knife and a scissor in our house - and tools added to the rows on

the ninth day. (We placed almost all our books for worship, so that there was no

probability of an instruction to ‘go and study’, from the elders, for a few days! After a

final worship of the lot on  Vijayadashami they went into their boxes, climbed on to

the loft and waited for the next year!  

The house was open for everyone all ten days and groups of children visited houses 

viewing, enjoying, wondering, commenting and learning from the arrangements.

Small sized common snacks like laddoos and barfis were prepared in large numbers

and were offered to the visiting children. Dasara certainly was a festival enjoyed by all !  

What I have written above is what I actually experienced during my childhood. However,

I haven’t heard or read about the significance of this arrangement of dolls. I understand

that the ‘Pattada gombe’  - which are at the center of all arrangements -  represent the

supreme god and goddess - Lakshmi Narayana. Having known that, I conclude that

the arrangements signify  the presence of the lord at the center of everything, and

his creation - the world. The worship of the implements, books, tools, weapons,

animals and vehicles signify the importance of every being and thing in our life and

their worship is probably a sort of thanksgiving. And it also signifies our philosophy

which urges us to see God in everything.