My dadi did a sankalp of 1008 Argala and keelakam along with REAL fasting for nine days during navratri of the year when my mother was pregnant. My baba took leave from his work for 9 days and did entire saptasati and chandipath under his guru baba during same time. My parents from both sides are the eldest so the child they were expecting was the first of a new generation. Every evening after aarti, my grandparents would spread open a red gamcha in front of maai and pester her to bless them with a son. Then I was born. This is a mandatory anecdote which gets passed around every Navratri in family. My dadi would later also used to force me to sit with her for hours to sort the samagri and chowki, where I was made to mug up hanuman chalisa and siddh kunjika stotram, my first modules of religious education. And then on every navratri during puja I get randomly teared-up remembering dadi and wonder why. Sometimes we don’t even acknowledge the kind of blessings and protection we are under while we keep cribbing about the things that didn’t go as planned. We have also acquired this culture of ‘nazar’ while cohabiting a low-trust society. Don’t talk about your Ws and good things publicly, for they attract bad eyes. I don’t think so. I know I’m protected and spoilt. Manifesting for everyone around me to be successful, prosperous and blessed under the ever-caring eyes of the Maai. I never really liked this nazar culture of being discreet about good things. Before prosperity, let us all hope for a healthy social circle around us by inculcating a mindset of abundance with the help of matarani. Matarani ka sher is thus very glad and emotional today, for everything. अगे माई❤️