The Real Essence of Navratri – Let’s Pledge to Give our KANYAS a Fearless World!

India is assumed to be the only country that celebrates each festival of every religion. The cultures and the festivals have kept the people tied together. I really feel proud to be a part of such a beautiful land where every festival has its own significance and traditional sentiments attached to it. One such festival is Navratri which is celebrated extensively across the entire country for nine nights. Though this carnival is a great celebration for Maharashtrian, Bengali and Gujarati ethnicity, it is not restricted only to those.

Significance of Navratri

Navratri starts with Ghatasthapana puja and ends with the day of Dusshera. It is a centenary where the ladies and the girls beautifully dress for the Garba dance; a dance form enjoyed every evening for nine days. Each day of the festival is devoted to diverse forms of Goddesses such as Goddess Durga, Goddess Lakshmi and Goddess Saraswati. The ‘KANYAS’, that is, prepubescent girls in India are also worshipped in these nine days of Navratri, especially on the ninth day, ‘Mahanavami’.

Are KANYAS Really Considered Goddesses? Does India really worship them?

Kanyas are being considered as the entities of Mother Goddess. Nine girls are invited to the house and offered various fruits, prasad, food and clothes. People worship girls as Mother Goddess’ nine manifestations. They believe that every girl has some feminine powers bestowed in her due to which each one of them is given prime importance and is highly respected. However, my simple question is if these girls are considered as avatars of Goddesses why India faces the most cases of girl molestation?

Every day we come across at least one bulletin which states that the girl, from a particular place, is either kidnapped or abducted while walking or playing. Later she is found left in some barren land molested. Every third girl in this country is sexually abused even before she reaches her puberty age. While molesting, any boy or man even realizes that their ‘feeling good’ factor has actually brought the ‘worst’ out of them? Molestation brings destruction to the girl. If you are a boy and you are somebody who is living in a country where girls are treated badly, don’t you think it is your responsibility to take care of them, at least those who are around you? Can girls actually raise their voice to save themselves from coming across any of such slightest incidences? It’s a fact that each ill-treated girl finds it extremely difficult to come out of traumatized experiences. Though we Indians are right that girls should be considered Goddesses because only they can regain the broken stability and bring the best out of them once again but does that mean we can test them for their limits?

The respect in the society matters a lot to us. This society has taught us that we need a virgin man or woman in our life for either relationship or marriage. Hence, it becomes an obvious fact that every molested girl would think that as now she has lost her virginity there would be no boy or man accepting her as a girlfriend or wife. This may be one of the many reasons why most of the molested girls suicide. Everybody thinks they are experts when talking about such taboo but nobody thinks of rectifying the situation.

 Change the Assumption to Belief

We live in a country where though everybody is treated equally, there still pertains inequality. If girls are worshipped just because they are assume to be avatars of Goddesses, why cannot we change that assumption into belief? I am not saying that every man should bow his head in front of his wife, mother, daughter, sister or any girl every time; I just want to convey that in a country where girls are treated to be the purest form of humans, do not molest or abuse them. If we proudly say that India is a country where every girl is treated just like boys, in short ‘equally’, then make that statement a fact! If you are a man, do not let yourself become a paedophile.

I am really proud to be an Indian as here girls are considered to be Goddess Durga. As per the legends, Goddess Durga killed the demon ‘Kolasura’ as the Gods were unable to kill him. They then approached her as she was the only one who could kill or banish any demonic thing happening on the Earth. If girls are considered as divine souls, do not take away that soul from them by molesting. Let our KANYAS live fearlessly in this world. It is their right to live and it is our right to protect them always and stop anybody who commits this crime.

This Navratri, let us celebrate the festival in the name of all innocent girls and let us pledge to protect each one of them and make this world a better place for them to live in.

Start the change from you and the world will follow!!!