Karva Chauth:

Karva Chauth:

Karva Chauth is a fast undertaken by married Hindu women who present prayers seeking the welfare, wealth, well-being, and long life of their husbands. Karva Chauth falls about nine days before diwali on the Kartik ki Chauth some time in October or November. It is the most chief fast observed by the women of North India. A woman keeps such a fast for the well-being of her husband, who becomes her guard after she leaves her parents home. Her husband provides her with food, shelter, clothing, respectability, comfort and pleasure.

This is really a very tough fast to watch as it starts before sunrise and ends after worshipping the moon, which typically rises at about 8.45 p.m. No food or water is to be taken after 4 a.m. or after sunrise. Nowadays, this fast is kept even in modern educated homes, attractive a symbol of the feeling that a woman has for her husband.

A sari (in the baya) is a must for the first Karva Chauth of a girl. One thing to be taken care of is that the baya reaches the girl's in-laws home, wherever the girl has gone throughout the course of the day, before the evening. The baya is given to the mother-in-law after the manasna. If the mother-in-law is not there, then the eldest lady in the house is offered with the baya. Sometimes, the elder one chooses to obtain only the perishable items, and leaves cash and clothes for the mother-in-law.

The preparation for the puja must be started at about 4 or 5 p.m. Someone older, who is ready, or the housewife herself as the condition demands, prepares a suitable place in the puja room, in case it is a big room which can house all the women who have been invited for the baya; otherwise the most excellent place is a verandah or the open courtyard, while normally the weather is not cold throughout this season. The puja place is decorated with kharia matti, which has been soaked in water two to three hours before, and takes a semi-liquid form. A chowk like in any other puja - is decorated on the floor.

This complete chowk should be located against a wall on one side, where a similarly decorated patta is kept, on which the Gaur Mata is seated. The Gaur Mata used to be complete with cowdung in the shape of a person shape, now regarding two inches tall. At present, a picture or an idol of Parvati is located on the patta.'just about an hour or so before moonrise, persons who hold observed the vrat, dress up again in their chunris or in red or pink clothes with chonp and bindi on their foreheads. Everyone at present gathers around the place where a carpet or durrie is spread over the leaving space for the puja objects.

The baya of individual is kept on a thaali, over the karva, with a little water and seven pieces of pua in it (seven broken from one bigpua). The karva itself is dee with kharia, aipun and a small roli. A strand of (red thread) of any thickness is tied around the part of the karva. The top cover is too decorated in the thaali is located on the cover. The women sit facing the and one elder member (there is no taboo on widow the family narrates the story and does the chanting, every woman doing the puja. This is known as man which means to give away and never take back. Initial of all, roll teeka is practical on the forehead of Gaur before the start of the puja. All the women doing puja also relate roli teeka on their foreheads and parting (known as maang). Everybody does pujan by dipping the third finger of the right hand in water sprinkling it among the help of the thumb three time the deity; the same process has to be repeated aipun and roli and, finally, the rice is showered. Depicts the bathing of the deity, decoration with a putting of the teeka with roli and, lastly, worship the deity with rice.