"In the Vedic system Saraswati ; Chinese: Biàncáitia-n, Thai: Sarasawatee; Japanese: Benzaiten) is the goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. Saraswati- has been identified with the Vedic Saraswati River. She is considered as consort of Brahma. She is the daughter of Durga and is seen alongside her during Durga Puja celebrations along with her sister Lakshmi and her brothers Ganesh and Karthikeya. Saraswati's children are the Vedas, which are the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism."This is what I have found in the wikipedia, my favorite encylopedia a, searching about our beloved goddess "Devi Saraswati". Bengali people are grown up with goddess saraswati from their childhood days as they are mostly interested in "learning" knowledge for their "earning". If you study well, you will get a good job, a better living. Even the illiterate "Kalidas" became "Mahakabi Kalidas" (The great poet Kalidas) by the grace of goddess Saraswati, so will be you. That is a childhood story, almost all Bengali hear at least once from their parents or elderly relatives, who are brought up in a very "Bengali" culture in true sense.
Saraswati Puja (worship) is a part of Bengali culture and at almost all educational institutions and every Bengali family organize this Puja. If you are a Bengali, you must have been through and may have been part of the "Hate Khari" (first lessions) of children during Saraswati Puja. At the age of three to four, you are supposed to ritually start writing the first letter of Bengali alphabet (same with Sanskrit and Hindi), on this very day. If you want to have a better idea what the ritual is, here is a link of a video, where a little lady starts her writing.
Bristi's Hate Khari
I am writing this post about the "Hate Khari", though keeping in mind the literary meaning of this phrase, I would like to mention some other forms of "Hate Khari" here.
- The eve before Saraswati Puja have a big significance to many Bengali School College students (me as well) for the "Hate Khari" (first lessons) of communicating to the opposite sex. Both boys and girls get a nice chance to mix with themselves in the school and college they read in and staying late there with proper permissions from their parents for the arrangements of the "Puja".
- Most of the cases, students of colleges stay the whole night at their institution and therefore get the chance of "Hate Khari" (first lessons) of smoking, drinking liquor or worse.
- The day of Saraswati Puja is an auspicious day again for another kind of "Hate Khari" (first lessons), wearing the traditional dresses of Bengali. "Dhoti - Panjabi (Kurta)" for boys and "Saree" for the girls. Dear reader if you never experienced this, you have missed the most of Saraswati Puja and the Bengali culture as a whole.
- Attires being that of the adults, the school children and college goers look lovely. There are several awards now a days from different Bengali media channels for best looking people on this day. My best wishes to the organizers of such an innovative effort, this certainly add a lot more enthusiasm to the young people for their "Hate Khari" (first lessons) in these attires.
- Seeing the future look of their "liked" ones in these attires, getting a great chance to freely talk to them in public, the young people stays in great mood on the day of Saraswati Puja. And this is why it is the known date for the parents to know that Saraswati Puja is also a main occasion for Hate Khari" (first lessons) of love. Yes, most of the school-college level love stories start from this day, and the "liked" ones turn into "loved" ones.
- I would also like to mention that, many of us who in our school or college level had organized or had been part of the arranging team, have got their "Hate Khari" (first lessons) in organizing. Later on this experience help them to organize events in future. A beginning lesson in event management.
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