Beyond Garba Nights: How Hindu Youth Are Reclaiming the Dharmic Core of the Festival Season
- authored by Arushi Ramaka
From impromptu campus pujas to rediscovering Bhakti poetry, young Hindus are showing devotion and celebration go hand in hand.
In the last couple years on social media, being brown is cool again. My feed is full with Garba outfit changes, Ayurvedic skincare, and bustling university events. The rush of a dance floor, the excitement of the rare break from endless academic onslaught, and the feeling of community are undoubtedly important. But something different is also gaining traction—the Hindu-ness of our festivals.
I have come to realize that our generation is more spiritually hungry than we assume. Recently, we decided to host an impromptu Ganesh Chathurthi puja on campus. Led by eight women, following the 16 step puja to invite Bhagwan Ganesh as a guest (Shodashopachara Puja), it attracted almost 40 people despite only advertising for two days. We put in our best effort—cleaning the area, setting up Ganapati pandal, cooking elaborate prasad, and doing the 45 minute puja from start to finish. Since then, my friends and I have regularly done pujas to show our peers that they don’t have to be boring, confusing, or daunting. The intention and devotion is what matters, not the perfection.
When Hindu youth enter adulthood, there is a sudden realization that they are only 10 to 15 years away from being parents to the next generation, and that they do not know as much about their faith as they would like. Many young adults aren’t sure about everything in Hinduism but they are definitely interested in learning. Beyond their festive lehengas and decorative kurtas, they yearn to feel that certainty of their identity, the confidence to celebrate a festival or do a puja from start to finish, and to be able to answer their friends’ and future kids’ questions about culture.
Still, some young Hindus might be hesitant or confused about incorporating spirituality and exploring Hindu dharma. Some may even feel they aren’t ‘Hindu enough—-but being Hindu is not an examination where one needs to score a 100 percent. Dharma is about seeking and questioning, learning and growing. It is not about perfection, and most certainly not about flaunting to what scale you’re cultured. One needs to trust the process—read the Bhagavad Gita, ask your local pandit a question, organize book clubs or discussions with a Hindu youth group. Learn about Lal Ded, Kabir, Molla, Meera Bhai, Akka Mahadevi, Annamayya, Ramadasu, Andal, Sant Tukaram, and see whose Bhakti poetry speaks to you. Or simply just sit for five minutes every day with your favorite shloka in front of your Ishtadev for a couple weeks, and feel slowly, as your ego surrenders and a whole new world opens up to you.
Thousands of years of Bhakti, surviving through countless social upheavals, quietly reminds us that aside from the daily rat race of career, society, and education, we are grounded by our values. We can turn to Bhagwan as the true cause of our success, honoring our ancestors, and our innate drive of spiritual and mental peace.
Devi, who we have just worshipped in such a beautiful myriad of ways during Navratri, is not just an idea or an elusive abstraction. She gave Ramanujan his groundbreaking ideas on physics and cosmology, and inspired great Hindu figures like Adi Shankaracharya and Shivaji Maharaj. She is a symbol of empowerment for millions of women suffering for their gender, present in so many compassionate and ferocious forms as protectors of villages and temples, living and breathing as Mother Earth who nourishes us, everyday, even if concrete and tiled floors separate our feet from her soil.
The festival season, with its colors and prayers, dancing and fasting, reminds me of the beautiful blend of joy and transcendental discipline that balances out to create a wonderful and exhilarating experience. In a world where our minds are constantly pulled between clashes of cultures and bombarded with information, having spiritual and mental resets built into our culture—whether it be Garba or Bathukamma, simple at-home pujas or bhajan nights—centers us and sets us along the journey for ultimate fulfillment and contentment. This is a reminder not only of the divine forces that sustain us but also of the diverse civilizational strength of Hindu dharma; it is the collective spiritual awakening of a generation that is becoming the torchbearer of an evolving yet persistent tradition.
Om Katyayanaya Vidmahe Kanyakumari Dheemahi
Tanno Durga Prachodayaat
Let Durga Maa guide our subconscious from ignorance to bliss.
The author, Arushi Ramaka, is a senior at UNC Chapel Hill. She is the national director of education and awareness for the Hindu Students Council as well as a member of CoHNA Youth.