Ashtami and the pushpanjali

Ashtami morning is pushpanjali: flowers held in cupped hands, mantras repeated after the priest in three rounds, and the flowers thrown towards the idol at the end of each. Many people fast until they have given it. Committees run several sittings through the morning because one cannot hold the numbers.

Anyone may join. Stand where the crowd is standing, follow the person in front of you, and take the flowers offered to you — nobody expects a visitor to know the words. The red-bordered white sari and the new panjabi are an Ashtami morning thing more than any other day.

Some pujas — famously the Belur Math tradition — perform Kumari Puja on Ashtami, worshipping a young girl as an embodiment of the goddess. Where it happens, it happens once, early, and the space fills long before it starts.

If you want to see one, find out the day before which puja near you performs it and what time; there is no city-wide schedule, and turning up hopeful at ten in the morning will not work.

This is the peak. Every road into every major puja is a queue, the Metro runs at capacity, and a walk that takes fifteen minutes in June takes an hour. Nothing has gone wrong; this is what Ashtami is.

Two ways to enjoy it rather than endure it. Either commit to the crowd — pick one neighbourhood, walk it slowly, eat on the street, and treat the queue as the evening. Or go somewhere block-organised and residential, where the same night is busy but human.