Hareli – Celebrating Mother Nature*
*Reena Jain, Educationist*
*New Delhi*
Which is the first expression that comes on your face when you close your eyes and say – HARELI !!!
Well ! it surely will bring a smile on your face and love & gratitude in your heart.
Of course, Hareli is celebrated for these very strong reasons as, it brings pleasure in our lives through prosperity and purity and teaches us to be grateful towards our very own “Mother Nature”.
Hareli means green, Green means grounded and down to earth !
Hareli means beginning of a new life !
Bharat’s Dhan ka Katora, Chhattisgarh is full of festivals and the series of the festivals start with Hareli. It denotes the transformation from darkness to the bright future…..hoping for better tomorrow of course.
It is a festival of farmers, who worship their land and love the Mother Nature. They respect their tools and decorate their animals and surrounding.
Although most of the farmers are not highly educated and this celebration started long back, yet, everything, every way of celebration is really scientific.
Amazed ??? Yes, you must be ! Let me tell you everything in a bit detail.
Hareli denotes the change in the weather from summer to Monsoon. This change as you know makes us juvenile at the same time brings many difficulties as well.
On Hareli people decorate their house entrance with cow dunk cakes and the stems of Neem, to keep the house safe from the various kinds of insects, viruses and diseases.
They make their cattle eat a dough made of wheat flour and rice flour mixed with many beneficial herbs to keep them safe from many seasonal and other diseases.
Farmers wash their farming equipment and tools then oil them properly to keep them on the working mode.
On this occasion people prepare delicacies in which the main ingredient is jaggery, which is again a method of taking care of their health.
Apart from this “Gedi” is also a unique factor, why people enjoy Hareli a lot. “Gedi” is a pair of long stick, on which people specially men/boys climb up and walk. It’s really very interesting.
In every way the festivals add colours to our life, so does Hareli.
Celebrate this festival with a heart full of gratitude towards Mother Nature.
Celebrate it because this is just the beginning, the life and nature has a lot to offer you.
Do celebrate but don’t forget to clean up afterwards, generally after celebration we get so tired that we scatter the things here and there and forget to clean up. Hareli doesn’t teach you that!
Now once again close your eyes, take a deep breath and say HARELI……… I’m sure now you understand the deep-rooted meaning of this pleasant festival.
Happy and Clean Hareli to you and to your loved ones!
