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Devotees wait for Chhaath sunrise

     Patna/New Delhi: As the first araghya (offering) has been made to the Sun God this evening, the devotees returned to their home only to come back in the wee hours of the morning to offer the penultimate offering. The banks of the river Ganga in Patna was crowded and so were the Yamuna ghats in Delhi as devotees thronged to offer the first prayer on Saturday evening. "We have come here to thank Chhaath maiya (Mother Chhat) on whose blessings we had a child this year," said Praveen Kumar, a Patna resident, who himself is a software engineer working in Bangalore. Former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi also offered prayers, but within the confines of her home in Patna. Her husband, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav took the opportunity to connect with his people and said that the former Chief Minister's prayers are for the people of Bihar. Chhaath is the only festival dedicated to the Sun God and is widely celebrated by people belonging to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The six-day long festival which culminates on the sixth day after Diwali, is also considered significant from the fertility point of view. Traditional folk songs blared as the bathing ghats near ITO in Delhi teemed with lakhs of people. Traffic movement, however, was smooth, thanks to the adequate measures taken by the traffic police in the national capital.
-Oct 28, 2006