The world celebrates February 14 as the Valentine’s Day but we MNITians had better plans to make most of this day.
It was Saraswati Puja or Vasant Panchami on February 13, 2016. The festival marks the end of winter and heralds the arrival of spring. The celebrations are centred around Goddess Saraswati, the deity of knowledge, music, arts, wisdom and learning in Hindu mythology.
It was customary to organise a puja to worship the goddess on that day. Most of the alumni were also associated with organising the event and participated in puja preparations. The expenses were taken care of by generous contributions from former and present students. The alumni made it a point to attend the celebration as well. The day was marked by many rituals, starting with invoking the Goddess after installing her idol in the morning, followed by aarti, evening aarti, prasadam distribution and traditional style immersion of the idol or visarjan the day after. It happened on the Valentine’s Date and I am glad that I was part of something so beautiful on this day.
Students enjoying before the visarjan
Most of the other students also thoroughly enjoyed themselves; it was the perfect time as the first midterm had just got over and the students were in dire need of Goddess’ blessings to sail through the exams. It was my first Saraswati Puja on the campus and I loved being part of the celebrations.
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