सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

The name Gangaur joins Gana, a name of Shiva, with Gaur, the fair goddess Gauri. Tradition holds that after her marriage Parvati returned to her parental home in spring, and was sent back to Shiva with love and ceremony; Gangaur relives that visit. Beginning the day after Holi, girls and married women gather ashes from the Holi fire, sow wheat and barley in small baskets, and worship painted images of Gauri and Isar-ji every morning for about eighteen days, singing Gangaur songs that ask for a good husband or a husband's long life. The festival closes on Chaitra Shukla Tritiya, when the images are carried in procession to a well, tank or lake and given a ceremonial send-off — Gauri returning to her husband's home. For Rajasthani women Gangaur is the great festival of saubhagya, and its songs, ghoomar dances and processions are among the state's most cherished traditions.

In homes, the daily worship is simple and tender: the clay or wooden Gauri and Isar are dressed and adorned, offered water carried in procession from a well, and sung to each morning. Unmarried girls keep the observance praying for a good match; married women keep it for their husbands' wellbeing, and newly married women observe the full eighteen days with particular care. On the final days, beautifully dressed images are carried through the streets on the heads of women in single file — the famous Gangaur processions. In Jaipur, an ornamented image of Gauri leaves the City Palace through Tripolia Gate accompanied by elephants, horses and bands, watched by huge crowds. In Udaipur the images travel by decorated boats across Lake Pichola, the heart of the Mewar Festival. Ghewar and other sweets are exchanged, and in many towns girls carry ghudlias — perforated earthen pots with lamps inside — singing from house to house in the preceding days.

Gangaur is above all a festival of place — the processions of Jaipur and the boats of Udaipur happen there, and diaspora families follow them through live streams and family video calls, which are easy to time since the main events fall in the Indian evening, Ottawa morning. The household side of Gangaur, though, travels well: women can set up small Gauri–Isar images (clay ones can be made at home, or pictures used), sow wheat sprouts in a pot on a sunny windowsill — March in Ottawa is still cold, so indoors is best — and keep the daily songs and worship through the eighteen days. On the concluding Tritiya, the images can be respectfully immersed in a basin of water at home. Rajasthani associations in some Canadian cities hold Gangaur evenings with ghoomar dancing; look for what is on locally in a given year.