How to celebrate Karwa Chauth in USA

Indians are more social when out of country. But joking apart, it was a better celebration of ‘Karwa Chauth’ festival this year in Indianapolis, USA. Better in comparison to the celebration in Phoenix,Arizona. As we were now living in Lakes of Windsor Apartments, Indiana and there were lots of Indians living in the neighborhood.

Brief Introduction

This festival is celebrated by married women from northern India in which they do not eat or drink anything from sunrise till moonrise. All this is done for the longevity of their husbands. And they wear Indian traditional clothes like saris, suits etc. Now let’s jump to how we celebrated this Indian festival in USA.

Organize a Get-Together

We chose this society as it was near to the company where my husband was working and some of his colleagues were staying there. All of the indians in the society were connected through a WhatsApp group. One of the persons hosted a get-together at her home and sent invites through that group with the help of some friends.

Decor

The living room area was filled with mats or sheets to have people sit and play games together. There were wax divas/candle placed on wine glasses ,a decoration idea that I learned recently.

And one of the corners was beautifully decorated with dupattas/scarves and was lit with party lights.Some of us arrived at the correct time, so we started taking pictures and had small conversations waiting for the main event to begin

Karwa Chauth Pooja(Prayer)

Party started at 5pm so that if anyone wanted to do a pooja (holy prayer), part of the ritual, she can do it well before. There are different methods of doing karwa chauth pooja in different cultures.In our Punjabi tradition, there are big plates containing a diva(candle) which are rotated in a circle with the mantras.Among us, there were three of us who follow this tradition so we did pooja separately at one of our home.After that, we went for the event.

Karwa Chauth games

The event started with a singing game, in which there were some paper chits with some popular Bollywood songs’ keywords written on them. The players had to pick one chit each and sing any Indian song including that keyword. The winner’s names were recorded for gift distribution. It was followed by a dancing event in which anybody who has prepared for a dance at any Bollywood song could perform.

Women used to wear bangles on this festival. So, there was a bangle game organized in which bangles with secure pins were provided to form a chain. Winner would be the one who put maximum pins in bangle through the sieve or who form the longest chain of bangles. This was fun. Another game I remembered was in which each player has to score their style based on their outfit, ornaments and makeup. The organizer maintained a list of scores for any particular color, item in the style. These were the main attractions of the party.

Further there was a tambola game organized in which the numbers are picked and the person who got the maximum numbers in their ticket wins the game just like a casino game.

Food and Makeup

Snacks were arranged for those who were not on a fast like Gulab jamun-the round sweet balls, samosas and tea. I learned makeup by following some YouTube videos, so I did makeup of one of my friend along with my own makeup and it turned out good. Me and my friend won one game each and we got glass container as a gift. All the gifts were bought by the organizers. Gifts make the events memorable.So try to include gifts if you are planning to organize such events.

Also checkout :-

Comparison in day to day life in India vs USA.Read more https://www.theexplorerdiary.com/comparison-day-to-day-life-in-india-vs-usa/(opens in a new tab)

11 ways to enjoy weekends if staying in USA https://www.theexplorerdiary.com/11-ways-to-enjoy-weekends-if-staying-in-usa/