Navi Mumbai: With Navratri fever on, if you are in Navi Mumbai and want to do some Pandal hopping, here are some pandal suggestions for you to begin with.
Nerul:
Durgeshwari Mahila Mandal in sector 27 Nerul has been involved in hosting a grand celebration during the Durga festival. This year the organization run by a group of enthusiastic women group has decided to not follow the conventional color pattern and has decided to depict various states' dressing styles through the nine days of festivity. “We wanted to do something different and therefore decided to shuffle the color pattern usually followed during the festival. While women wore yellow colored dress on Thursday, at our Pandal we were wearing dress and sarees in red color. Going by the theme of depicting a state most of us were dressed in Gujarati-style outfits,” said the founder of the Mandal Varsha Nath.
The first time the mandal organised the event was in 2014. With no cultural events happening in the area, the founder of the group Varsha Nath, and her husband decided to host the event. "There used to be no celebration or festivities in this area. While other parts of the city used to rejoice, this area looked dull and lifeless. I wanted to give women of the area a medium to showcase their talents. So, I went ahead and single-handedly organised the program," said Nath. From being a small setup, the group has expanded and has been instrumental in hosting grand Navratri programs. Besides letting devotees dance their hearts out in the form of Dandiya and Garba before a huge Durga idol, the Mandal also serves free food for over 2000 devotees for nine days.
Seawood:
For ‘Jai Bhavani Mahila Mandal’, this marks the 26th year of Navratri Utsav at Karave village in Seawood. It is one of the oldest Mandal celebrating the festival in the Seawood area. Located at sector 48, ‘Mauli’ is what they call their Pandal.
Besides having garba and dandiya, the Mandal organized a health camp for the women. On average, close to 500 women come over to the Pandal to play garba. The Mandal, this year chose the theme of the twelve Jyotirlingas to decorate around the idol of Durga which is 5.5 feet tall.
Vashi:
Jai Bhavani Sarvajanik Mandal at sector 9 which has been setting up Garba Pandals since 1994, has been successful and attracting more people to their pandal every year, and is known for the light works on the street near the Pandal.
This year too, the Mandal has set up their Pandal with a nine feet tall idol of Durga. On average, close to 10,000 people visit the Pandal and dance to the tunes of Garba in the evening.
The Mandal this year had organized a competition for women in the area to showcase their artwork besides, also have dressing up competition.
Vashi:
Shri Shakti Mitra Mandal from sector 6 in Vashi is celebrating its 47th year of celebrating the festival. The Mandal this time decorated the Pandal as a traditional temple. The speciality of the Pandal is that they have been having an idol of Durga made up of ‘Panchdhatu’ (Five metals). Panchdhatu consists of Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, and Brass metals. The idol is not immersed after the festival but is instead taken to the residence of whoever is willing to keep it for a year. For the next year then every month during ‘poornima’ a maha aarti is organized in the residence. The idol that the Mandal use was purchased close to 10 years back.
On an average around 1500 people visit the pandal daily and every day they organize some or the other competitions meant for children and women.