My Navratri My Nine Days Are Simple; It Is a Time of Manifestation

Nine keeps turning up in my life all the time, and I don’t think it’s an accident. It takes nine months to give birth, Nine nights of Navratri. Nine forms of Durga. Nine planets in our chart, quietly shaping everything. Nine gems. Nine rasas, the emotions every Kuchipudi dancer is trained to hold and give away on stage. Even 108, the number of beads in a mala, adds up to nine. It is the number that doesn’t dissolve. Multiply it by anything and it comes back to itself.

For me that is what Navratri is. A return to what stays the same in me while everything else changes. Growing up in Bombay, Navratri also meant playing dandiya, caught up in the music and movement of the evenings.

I have never followed a fixed routine of worship; I visit temples when I feel drawn to them. For me, devotion does not need a timetable. It can arrive in a quiet moment, through prayer, dance, or simply feeling the Devi’s presence within.

When I danced Devi Lakshmi, I stopped thinking of her as only wealth. She became steadiness, grace, a way of carrying what you have. When I create the lotus on the wet trampoline while dancing Simhanandini I feel the power of Shakti in me and yet the light

shine through.

Each night of Navratri I feel a different shade of the Devi, the way each rasa shows a different face of one dancer. My nine days are very simple: puja and dhyanam of the goddess, It is a time of manifestation, garba dance in Mumbai, celebration and deep reflection. I have always felt that in the middle of these nine days something loosens. By the ninth I feel complete, not finished.

Nine is the last digit before we start counting again. That is how I step out of Navratri, ready to begin again, closer to myself and closer to her.

Highlight: devotion can arrive in A quiet moment, through prayer, dance, or simply feeling the Devi's presence within.