Karva Chauth

'Karwa Chauth' is a ritual of fasting observed by married Hindu women seeking the longevity, well-being and prosperity of their husbands. It’s mostly celebrated by married women in the northern and western parts of India. Karva Chauth comes nine days before Diwali on 'kartik ki chauth'. Right before this festival, markets are buzzing with women buying bangles, cosmetics, new clothes, earthen pots etc for the festival. Another tradition associated with this festival is that of applying Henna on hands. Henna symbolizes luck and prosperity. Mehandi wala’s make most of their profit during this time as women are ready to shell out quite a lot of money due to the heavy rush encountered in these days around each and every mehandi wala.

After eating a meal before dawn (this meal is called sargi), the women don’t eat or drink for the entire day. The fast is broken at night after offering prayers to the moon.

My husband was not with me for my first Karva Chauth. Nontheless, he didn’t let this affect the fun of this festival for me. Though he was in USA at that time he made sure that I didn’t miss him even for a single moment throughout the day. I was woken up in the morning with a rose bud and a sweet good morning message from him. And the rose bud deliveries kept pouring in throughout the day at regular intervals of 1 hour, all accompanied by different messages. What was more interesting was that the rose buds kept increasing in number with the advancement of time (every hour I got one more rose bud than the previous hour). By evening I had my entire room filled with fragrance of fresh, red roses. At the time of breaking my fast, technology helped us. I saw the moon and talked to him on the webcam before breaking my fast. Though he had done all this to make sure that I didn’t miss him, I actually missed him more than ever that day because I wanted him to be there with me so that I could personally thank him for making it such a memorable day for me.