Local women put new spin on annual Navaratri Golu celebration

NOVI — The Hindu festival of Navaratri is celebrated over a nine-day span every fall, typically in October. During the festival, women traditionally have Golu (religious doll displays) set up in their homes and invite friends and family to view them.

“We invite our neighbors, friends, family and we treat each of them as goddesses themselves and we offer them food, they come and view the display and they offer their good wishes and blessings,” said Raje Angamuthu, of Sterling Heights. “It’s nine nights of getting together, praying and socializing.”

The displays are similar in that they consist of the same gods and goddesses, but there are multiple variations of the dolls themselves, much like various Christian Nativity scenes. The Golu is often displayed in different orders to tell a different Hindu story.

“No two doll displays are the same,” said Shuba Ganapathy, of Novi.

Every year, Hindu women travel all over, often visiting eight to 20 homes a night during the festival.

This year, to help ease their friends’ burden of traveling long distances to view numerous displays across the metro Detroit area, three local women decided to bring their Golu to two central locations, Fuerst Park in Novi and Raintree Park in Troy.

“We usually go from Ann Arbor to Auburn Hills and some, like, hundred people invite us and hundred women visit us. It gets hard to accommodate every house within the nine days,” said Vidya Venkatesh, of Canton, who co-organized the event with Ganapathy and Angamuthu. “So, this time we decided that, hey, we are going to bring our Golu to your location to make it easier.”

Angamuthu said that she felt they had a nice turnout at each of the two events with 60-70 people attending during the two hours they had their Golu on display at each location. Venkatesh said that attendees at both locations were thankful that they didn’t have to drive far to view their Golu.

“They can all come and see it in one place and they don’t have to go to multiple houses,” Angamuthu said.

“It’s very unique and I think it’s very imaginative of them to do that to bring it here,” said Nachu Vella, of Novi. “It’s nice too that I don’t have to go far. It’s close by.”

Vella said she also liked that they did it with a nature backdrop, as nature is very significant in Hinduism.

“It’s easier this way,” said Raj Sivakamar, of Farmington Hills. “Instead of carting my wife around to all these places, I can just cut my chauffeur duties in half.”

Roger Natarajan, program director of actuarial science at the University of Michigan, said that by holding the event in this format, more people can come together in one place and that he hopes that by publicizing the event, it will promote a broader understanding of Hindu culture.

Ganapathy’s husband, Sri, said the holiday is about female empowerment and that women and men are equal.

“I don’t want to get too far into it, but there is Shiva and Shakti, husband and wife. They are god and goddess. So it is to kind of represent that they are both the same,” Sri Ganapathy said.

Navaratri celebrates Shakti, goddess of strength and energy; Saraswati, goddess of education; and Lakshmi, goddess of wealth.

Angamuthu said women in all forms are celebrated during the holiday. She said it celebrates women’s joy and strength, which is brought out in all the forms of the goddesses they celebrate.

“The energy of women. That’s what we celebrate,” she said.

Angamuthu, who works for the U.S. Army and is on a diversity, equity and inclusion team, said that by explaining the festival to the public, she hopes that people will gain some understanding of her culture and be more willing to open their eyes to other cultures.

“At the basic essence, it’s a celebration of people and women. It is a sense of community, a sense of joy together,” she said of Navaratri.

“Most of it is live your life well — in a good way, and here’s some ways to be a good person, think good, do good,” said Angamuthu. “That’s what all our gods represent. Basically, they represent good over evil. How to be closer to god and not attach to worldly things. Those are the lessons that all of our history and culture teaches us, which I think is universal.”