Navratri is a popular festival in the northern part of India to celebrate the victory of Maa Vaishno Devi over an asur. People fast for 8 days (7 days in some cultures) and then break the fast on the 9th day by inviting 9 or more girls aged less than 9-10 years and 1 or more boys to their home, worship them considering girls to be a form of Maa Vaishno Devi or Devi and boys to be a form of Lord Hanuman and offer them food. This food consists of black chana, potato curry and puri (fried Indian bread). Along with the food, small gifts and/or money is also given to everyone who comes to enjoy the feast. This is called Kanjak or Kanya Puja, meaning workshipping girls.
The rules for this is diverse as with everything in India. In the part of India, where I was born and brought up, all of us friends used to group together and visit various houses in the neighbourhood to have feast and get money. It used to be a time of celebration and fun with friends. There was no restriction on the gender of the kids. When we shifted to a different place, I got a culture shock when I visited one house and I was made to sit outside the room and given the food separately as if I was untouchable. That left a deep mark and I never visited any house for Kanjak. At our home, things were quite flexible and we would be ok with less or more number of girls or any number of boys coming to the house for a feast and we would treat everyone equally. Being a lower middle class family, we would obviously limit the number of kids coming by inviting less people but we would try to make provision if more number of kids come if they are in a group.
Many years later, through a relative, I also got to know that some people have a restriction that kids coming to the house should finish the food at the house and can’t take it home. This was again different for me because as kids, we used to go to different houses, collect the food and enjoy it at home with our parents. The reason for this is also rooted in another interpretation of this tradition which can be discussed in another post.
The important thing that is mostly unchanged in most cultures is to invite girls who have not yet started menstruating. This is a non-negotiable requirement for most people while some people like my family are a little more flexible. This association of a tradition with menstruation is not new in India. There are a host of things dependent upon menstruation like not going to temples while menstruating or not entering kitchen, sleeping separately, not touching the pot of water, etc. It is an endless list.
Now normally, one would think, what is wrong with following such a tradition. There is no harm in it. Well, think deeply. Think of a small girl, who has been going to different houses twice a year to enjoy the feast, is suddenly stopped from going or getting invited by people. If she asks her parents, will she get an honest answer on why this happened and if she did, will she be able to understand the connection between menstruation and not getting invited for Kanya Puja? Will she be able to understand that she is considered impure from now on? This mentality that menstruation makes women impure takes the form of many superstitions in everyday life as mentioned previously. Taking this further, this mentality then leads to the thought process that women are inferior and once that thought comes to the mind, it creates scope for a lot worse. A progressive society changes its traditions with the advancement in reason, logic and scientific temperament.
My suggestion is to take a middle path. Follow the tradition but do away with regressive thoughts. Invite any number of kids that you feel comfortable in arranging feast for but do not discriminate on any ground. A kid is after all a kid.
