INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

on North Indian festivals. 665 In the following I will briefly exemplify how Sikh women
in Varanasi may observe the festival of Karva Chauth. In a second category of festivals
are those which local Sikhs believe preserve and extol a traditional Punjabi culture.
Had the research comprised of more interviewees it is possible that many other festivals
would fit into this group. Here I will briefly bring up a few contexts for celebrations
of the festival Lohri. The third category includes national holidays (such as Dassehra,
Divali, Holi, Vasant Panchami) that primarily focus on worship of particular
Hindu deities. The typical staging of many of these festivals in Varanasi has already
been covered by scholars. 666 Below I will privilege the description of Divali, since this
was the only cultural festival mentioned by all of my interlocutors and thus was a
clear favorite. The celebrations of Divali may also illustrate how Sikhs both share and
attribute new meanings to a festival that is basically Hindu in origin.
KARVA CHAUTH
On the fourth day of the waning fortnight in the month of Katak (Katak vadi 4), nine
days before Divali, some Sikh women in Varanasi observe the festival Karva Chauth. 667
In different areas of northern India Karva Chauth is an occasion during which married
women worship the moon and fast in order to seek welfare, protection, and a long life
of their husbands. 668 Before sunrise the individual woman takes a bath and adorns
herself with new a dress. For the remainder of the day she abstains from food and
water until the moon appears in the sky. At night she dresses up in red clothes (if
newly wedded in the bridal gown) and decorates herself with jewels, bindis and
henna. Together with the other women in the household or neighborhood she reads
different stories related to Karva Chauth (Karva Chauth Vrat katha) about how mythological
women in the past have resurrected the health and life of their husbands by
undertaking fasts. 669 The evening celebrations may also include a puja directed to the
Hindu deities Gauri Ma or Shiva and Parvati. While singing songs and praying for
the well-being of their husbands, they symbolically keep a pitcher (karva) filled with
sweets. Another central feature of Karva Chauth is the exchange of gifts between fam-
665
Freed & Freed 1998, Singh & Nath 1999, Dogra & Dogra 2000.
666
See Katz 1993. For the famous staging of Ram-lila programs – dramatizations of the Ramayana
story ‒ during Dassehra, consult Hess 1983, Schechner 1983, Lutgendorf 1991. A comparison
between South Indian and North Indian celebrations of national festivals is provided by Fuller
1992.
667
The term chauth means the “fourth day” and karva refers to the earthen pot with a spout – a
symbol of peace and prosperity ‒ that is traditionally used in the ritual performed durings this
festival.
668
Freed & Freed 1998. See also the website published by the Society for the Confluence of Festivals
in India at: www.karwachauth.com.
669
A popular katha tells about the woman Karva whose husband was caught by a crocodile and
requested the lord of Death, Yama, to send the animal to hell. Firstly Yama refused her, but
afraid of the devoted woman’s power he accepted her wish and blessed Karva’s husband with a
long life (Menzies 2004, Mackenzie Pearson 1996).
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008