Chennai gets 'Golu'ised!

As Navratri begins this Sunday, apart from Kolkatta, did you know that Chennai also wears beautiful colours and the 9-day festival is celebrated with great vigor. In Kolkatta, it is more like public festivities but in Chennai, almost every household celebrates it with Golu or Kolu, a display of dolls on a number of tiers or steps. Not only the homes but also temples have Golu decorations. The streets are also full of shops selling these clay dolls.

This is the busiest time for the Golu makers; thankfully this continues to be the domain of local manufacturers and not the Chinese.  And three middle-aged siblings, Amarnath, Surendranath and Aparna, who call themselves the Mylapore Trio are the best when it comes to creative golu arrangements.

The local media hails them as the “Cultural ambassadors of Mylapore”, organisers have been calling upon them to judge city-wide golu competitions for nearly 15 years, they even have a set of written guidelines for arranging golus. The trio has been invited by the management of some of Tamil Nadu’s biggest temples, such as the Kapaleeshwarar temple, the Madurai Meenakshi temple, the Parthasarathy temple and the Ranganathaswamy temple of Srirangam. 

Well, Mumbai has its Ganapati festival for ten days where Lalbaug dominates and in Chennia, the decoration of this trio rules. Every city has its own Picasso!