Vat Savitri Pooja Observed

Patna: May 19, 2004

While most of the country was either mourning or celebrating, depending on one’s party affiliation, the departure of Sonia Gandhi from the Prime Ministerial race, women of Patna, immune to political developments, were celebrating the Vat Savitri festival with usual fervor and gaiety and thronged to Vat (banyan) trees in record large numbers. [Photo Gallery]

The festival that resembles with Karwa Chauth in the sense that both festivals are observed by women for the health and wealth of their husbands, had the entire city painted in religious color as women arrived at various Vat trees to tie religious thread to it and offer prayer wishing for long lives for their life partners.

Those who couldn’t come to a tree, offered prayers at home with a branch of Vat tree. Roads remained crowded and more two-wheelers, auto-rickshaws and rickshaws were seen plying on the streets than any other form of vehicle.

The administration had done excellent arrangement to keep things in line. In Kadam Kuan, volunteers offered services to the ladies and baby-sat their children. A couple of children who were believed to be lost, were reunited with their mothers or sisters by the vigil volunteers, sources said.