Dasara in a Dolls' House.

Greetings!

This year I want to concentrate more on 'Indian Dolls' showcasing my culture and traditions and festivals. Every year in the month of October or November we celebrate a festival called 'Dasara' or 'Navarathri' (meaning 'Nine Nights').  The festival is celebrated for a period of nine days and on the tenth day we celebrate 'Vijayadashami'. This is the most auspicious day of all. It was the day on which evil was destroyed by good. Auspicious occasions like weddings, new business ventures, etc take place on this day. Dasara is celebrated in a different way, in different parts of India, I am from Karnataka and I will describe how we celebrate 'Dasara' or 'Bombe Habba' (meaning Doll Festival)......

This is one of the fascinating festival for ladies and young girls, since it involves displaying and decorating dolls and figurine for all those nine days. The dolls include everyday scenes, religious dolls from the two great epics of India 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', miniature utensils, weddings, royal court life, wooden toys and anything that a girl plays. Some enthusiastic people even make a model of a park or a forest and display animals etc....

Every Brahmin woman gets a pair of wooden dolls(male and female) in her wedding from her parents, called 'Pattada Gombe' which are generally made of teak or sandalwood. It is compulsory as a part of tradition to dress these dolls using fabric or color paper like a bride and bride groom and display them every year along with the other dolls during Dasara. It seems that in ancient times these dolls were representative of local king and queen, people prayed for their long life and prosperity of the kingdom. In front of these dolls we place two 'Kalasha's' (two small silver or copper pots, filled with water, coconut, and beatle leaves, which is considered very auspicious. I made these wooden dolls out of yarn. I had to make these very tiny so I knitted them using zero knitting needles and fine yarn. I am not very happy the way they have turned out but I can live with it for now :).

On fifth day we celebrate 'Saraswathi Puja'. Goddess Saraswathi, is considered the Devine source of knowledge and enlightenment. Books and musical instruments are placed in front of the dolls and children offer prayers to seek knowledge. I made 'Veena' the musical instrument that's played by goddess 'Saraswathi'. I looked through my junk pile and found some interesting beads and other things to make this instrument :)............

We draw  'Rangoli' in front of these dolls. 'Rangoli' is a folk art from India, in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, flour, flower petals, chalk....drawing 'Rangoli' in front of the house is sacred and it's our tradition. It is believed that by drawing this we are welcoming goddess 'Lakshmi', the goddess of wealth.

We light the lamps in front of these dolls, light the incense sticks, and offer fruits and other delicacies, that are prepared to the God along with the flowers. In the evenings we invite ladies and little children to see the dolls and we exchange sweets and other offerings like fruits etc., which is called 'Bombe Bhagina'. Little girls dress up for the occasion and carry a little bag to collect sweets and gifts from their neighbors. Devotional songs and hymns will be sung.

On the evening of the tenth day, any one of the dolls is put to sleep and the Kalasha is moved a bit towards north to mark the end of 'Dasara'. All the dolls will be packed up until next year. Doll collection is one of the greatest hobbies among the ladies. Every year they buy new set of dolls, and the collection grows year after year.

I made a miniature version of 'Dasara' even though Dasara is quite far off, I thought of making it since this idea was fresh on my mind..... I even made a room box to arrange every thing. This whole set was created out of my imagination, except for those felt dolls which I borrowed from Kath Dalmey's 'Dolls' House Details' and the 3-D paper garden was inspired from the book 'Paper in three dimension' by Diane Maurer-Mathison. I on,y made some changes to the garden by adding a cottage....

I made some clay folks as well....

Over all I am quite happy to show that Dasara can be celebrated quite elaborately even in a'Dolls' House'............last but not the least want to share my favorite pic.... I love the girl's tote :)......

 

Will be back soon with my next project ;)....

Revu!