Nine nights of puja, fasting and garba ask more of a household than a single festival day does. Sharad Navratri, the autumn Navratri, honors the nine forms of Goddess Durga and ends with Dussehra on the tenth day. This list is for whoever is running the house: the kalash on the first morning, the fasting kitchen, the evenings out and the Kanya puja near the end.
Customs change from region to region and from family to family. A Gujarati household planning garba every night and a Bengali one heading to Durga Puja pandals will each skip half of this. Keep what your family does.
If your family keeps an akhand jyot, the lamp that burns through all nine days, decide who refills it at night before day one. It is much easier to settle now than at two in the morning on day four, when the ghee is running low.
- Confirm this year's dates and the Ghatasthapana muhurat — The auspicious time to set up the kalash on the first morning changes every year. Check a panchang or ask your family priest.
- Clean the house, starting with the puja area
- Set up a chowki and cover it with a red cloth
- Place the image or idol of Goddess Durga on it
- Buy the Ghatasthapana items — Usually a kalash, mango leaves, a coconut, mauli thread, rice, and a clay pot with soil.
- Buy barley (jau) seeds to sow on the first day — Sown in the clay pot, they sprout over the nine days.
- Stock ghee or oil and wicks for the akhand jyot, if your family keeps one — Buy enough for nine days and nights of burning.
- Stand the lamp on a metal plate, clear of curtains, flowers and fan drafts
- Agree who checks and refills the lamp at night
- Decide which days each person will fast — Some keep all nine, some only the first and last. Anyone pregnant, diabetic or on daily medication should ask their doctor before a long fast.
- Stock the fasting flours — Kuttu (buckwheat), singhara (water chestnut) and rajgira (amaranth). Buy small, fresh packs and check the date; do not use last year's.
- Buy sendha namak (rock salt) — Many fasting households use it in place of ordinary table salt.
- Buy sabudana, samak rice, potatoes, peanuts, milk and fruit
- Write a rough menu for the fasting days — Sabudana khichdi, kuttu puri and aloo, and makhana are easy to rotate.
- Arrange fresh flowers for each day's puja — Marigolds and red hibiscus are common choices for Durga.
- Check this year's list of nine colors, if you dress by them — The color for each day changes from year to year.
- Get garba or dandiya outfits ready
- Buy dandiya sticks
- Book passes for the garba nights you want to attend — Popular venues in big cities can sell out before the first night.
- Invite the girls for Kanya puja on Ashtami or Navami — Families who keep it often invite nine young girls, and some invite one boy as well.
- Plan the Kanya puja meal — Puri, black chana and sooji halwa is the usual plate in North India.
- Buy small gifts for each girl — Bangles, a red chunri, stationery or a little cash.
- Find where your town holds Ramlila and the Dussehra effigy burning, if it does
- Close the puja the way your family does, including what happens to the barley sprouts