Indore:
The four-day Chhath festival, the biggest and most sacred festival of the worshiping of the Sun God began in the city from Monday with `Nahai Khai’ (holy bath and eating).
Chhath devotees took a holy bath and meditated. Thereafter, they cooked rice, lentils and gourd vegetable in a vessel. Devotees ate the same before resolving to observe the rigorous Chhath fast with utmost religious sanctity.
Kharna will be organised on Tuesday on the second day of the Chhath festival. On this day, the devotees after observing fast for a whole day will eat rice kheer made in sugarcane juice in the evening after offering milk, `rice pittha’ and ghee-smeared roti to the Sun God. With this the 36 hours of fasting of the Chhath devotees will begin.
On the third day of Chhath festival, on 10th November, the fasting devotees will offer `Arghya’ to the setting Sun by standing in water bodies.
"The organising committees will make arrangements for masks and sanitisation at all the Chhath Ghats. Along with this, an appeal has been made to all the Chhath devotees to wear masks as much as possible on the Chhath Ghats. Besides, the devotees have also been asked to come to Chhath ghats only if they have taken both the doses of the Covid vaccines’, committee member Jha said.
Communal Harmony
Every year, representatives of the Muslim community from Bihar living in the city set an example of communal harmony.
They participate in the cleaning of Chhath Ghat located in Scheme No 54 of Vijay Nagar. The community members are led by Amjad Khan, president of Minority Cell of the Poorvottar Sanskritik Sansthan. Former corporators of the area Munnalal Thekedar and Pooja Patidar also participate in the event.
