MUMBAI : Coming from a convent school, actress Anu Aggarwal says that celebrating Navratri was not really a part of her childhood. However, advanced studies made her understand the significance of the auspicious days.

“Anyone who has studied in a convent school knows we sing hymns, and don't really celebrate Hindu festivals unless it is a Government holiday. My school, built in 1903, had an amazing church where I visited to know the benevolence of Christ whenever I needed guidance. Navratri was something my mother observed but I felt aloof and detached from it. I quit films to go to study in an International Yoga University. The science of the nine nights of the Devi, powerful female energy, Navratri, was a part of our course. I was blown by the environmental, psychic relevance of this time,” she says.

Talking about fasting, she says, “Basically fasting was done to get mentally alert, avoid the energy that food takes to digest in a body. Also, the planetary shift of harmony of all planets is the time when our body is already charged, we don’t need to feed it much.”

She adds, “Fasting was optional. But we had to observe maun, silence while we focused our energy on chanting.  Throughout the day we chanted various attributes of Goddess energy like Saundarya Lahiri, Durga Saptashati etc. We focused on evoking the energy in us and then sending the auspiciousness, wishing harmony to all like our friends, family and ultimately to each being in the universe.”

Talking about how she celebrates, Anu says, “The colour red is observed as the bright fire of the Devi, so that is an amazing colour to wear right now. I also am wearing red bangles with gold dots right now, especially for my fashion offering to the benevolence of the time. In my diet, I keep my stomach light. I skip wheat, solids etc, while filling myself with sattvic, organic, super energy but natural foods like makhana, sabudana, buckwheat to detox my body-mind.”

However, she says that one should try and understand the significance of the days in their entirety. “Let’s get away from the delusion that Navratri is religious, it totally focuses on energy we all inherently are.  Navratri is not just for women, the female energy exists in males too— of forgiving, caring, loving, and nurturing. So men can also evoke that power in them.”