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Panchami Night
This year the puja being one day short than usual (Ashtami and Navami on the same day), Panchami was as eventful as any other day. Normally the events start shashti evening.
At 6pm, I was at FabIndia in GK 1 buying a kurta. Got a call from a friend of mine who was there at CR Park. A runtime plan was made and I was there at CR Park at 730. After being there for an hour and visiting some of the 'pandals', started for home where a cocktail party was waiting for me.
Reached home. Had screwdriver and bloody mary.

Shashti Night
Had to attend a rock show. Reached Decibel in Hotel Samrat. Rocktoberfest was organised featuring Themclones, Joint Family and the winner of the GIR 2005, the band from Chennai called No Idea. Lovely GIG. Joint family started with Fear Factory and they played stuff by Korn, Pantera etc.


Then came Themclones. It was their 4th show that I was witnessing.. First time indoor. I have heard almost all their songs in their prior performances but still they had put up a great show and it was great to see my friend headbanging to Themclones standing right in the front. They played Disturbed, RATM and some of their lovely originals like 'Awaken' and 'In the name of God'. Their performance also featured Rollin by Limp Bizkit. It was sung beautifully by the lead singers of Themclones, Joint Family and the ex-Clones singer. We had to leave early so we missed No Idea (anyway I was not in a state to listen to the slow rock that they play.)

Saptami
Met friends at Gole Market DIZ Area Puja Pandal.. Gave 'anjali', had 'prasad' and headed for New Delhi Kali Badi. Met some more friends there. Stayed there till 130 pm and left for CR Park. Were in a hurry as my friend had to leave for home early. Reached Shib Mandir in almost no time thanks to the cooperative traffic at that time of the day. Seeing a line of atleast 500 people for the 'Bhog' was too much to take but the hope of finding one of my friend's dad who is in the Bhog Committee kept us alive. Being optimistic is not always bad. We found him and he arranged the bhog for us.

Post bhog, we roamed around CR Park to have a look at the rest of the pandals. Nothing worth mentioning happened after that.


Ashtami/NavamI

It had to be a long day considering it to be the last day of the puja and the aggregation of 2 days into one. Gave anjali at 11. Visited some nearby pandals and conserved energy for the evening and the night. We had a planned a tour of the major pujas in Delhi.

We started at 730 and headed towards India Gate where we had to meet some people. Reached there and drove around India Gate for parking for atleast 15 minutes. Met them, had food there. Mouth watering chilly chicken and Naan.
Started from there and had a quick view of the Minto Road Puja. From there we headed for South Delhi, starting with CR Park. We could sense the crowd as soon as we entered the vicinity of CR Park. Jams all over the place. I knew an alternative route so we saved a lot of time. But it wasn't over. The roads around all the pandals were jammed with people all over. Police controlled queues were there for entering any of the pandals and none of the queues had less than 150-200 people. We managed to enter Mela Ground Puja after walking for 20 minutes. After that we headed towards Shiv Mandir. Walked for 15 minutes to find another queue whose end wasn't visible. That was too much for us. We headed for home. On the way stopped by at South Delhi Kali Badi and Sarojini Nagar Puja Pandals. We reached back our area around 1 am.

Vijaya Dashami
Reached my pandal at 1130. Process of taking Goddess Durga for immersion had already started. She had to be taken to Nigambodh Ghat near ISBT. The procession started and after walking some distance, I started back for home.

Pic : Visarjan Ceremony from the Pandal.



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