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| Kanajk Poojan: A diminishing ritual or a status stigma? | | | EARLY TIMES REPORT
Gathering sufficient number of little girls (kanjaks) for the Navratra puja appears to have become the toughest task of the nine-day sacred period.
The problem stares people in the face on this day when they want little girls, preferably below the age of 5, for the puja.
As many people perform the puja to mark the conclusion of Navratras on asthmi today, many could be seen waiting in queues outside houses where little girls went in groups.
The problem is even more severe in posh localities in the city where residents are reluctant to send their children to other houses.
"This time it was even tougher than the last year to find small girls for pooja. Even as I personally visited several houses yesterday itself and requested them to send their daughters for the kanjak puja, I had to wait for more than one and a half hour after preparing the Prasad for the girls. It was only after I requested my neighbours to send the kanjaks who had come to their house that I managed to get seven girls together,” said Renu Verma, a Panjtirthi resident.
The kanjak pooja is performed on two days, ashtmi and navmi, by people. For the prayer, a certain minimum number of girls, seven, nine or eleven , along with one boy, are made to partake the prasad prepared by the host.
“Earlier, it was so easy to find them and they used to move around in groups. All one had to do was just step out of the house and you would find a group of girls. But today I faced such a problem that ultimately I went to our nearby temple at around 10.30 am, where, too, it was not easy to find girls as many people there, belonging to BPL
groups, had dressed up their little boys in frocks to be presented as kanjaks to earn some money,” complained Priya Gupta , a resident of Jain Bazar.
In posh localities, where people are reluctant to send their kids, the task is even tougher. In many cases, people even send the prasad, along with gifts, to the house of a friend or neighbour who has a little girl.
Performing the pooja, too, is becoming a costlier affair as the quality of gifts given to the kanjaks is changing. The market offers a wide variety of gift items like toys, stationery, purses, etc.
“I was quite surprised to see the variety. I picked up beautiful purses and
filled them with chocolates. It did cost me a little more, but then it is also a status symbol,” Seema said.
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