ANS I Dhanbad: “Dol Jatra” or “Dol Utsav” celebrated with traditional fanfare in Dhanbad. The festival was organised by Chandan Studio at Sarovar Park in Bekarbandh area was kicks-off with Plash flower dance and jollity.
Holi festival observed as ‘Dol Purnima’ or ‘Dol Jatra’ in Bengal, Odisha and Assam, which is a major festival of Bengali’s.
Dhanbad Mayor Chandrashekhar Agarwal, his wife Veena Agarwal and Editor Dainik Jagran Chandan Sharma were present as the chief guests on the occasion were welcomed by ‘Palash Phool dance’. Over two hundreds of people from Bangali families includes newly born to late eighty throngs inside the park for celebrations, enthusiastically participated in many events.
This festival is dedicated to Lord Sri Krishna. On this auspicious day, an image of Krishna, richly adorned and besmeared with Abir powder, is taken out in procession, in a swinging palanquin, decorated with flowers, leaves, colored clothes and papers, said Chandan Paul.
“The procession proceeds forward to the accompaniment of music, blaring of conch shells, trumpets and shouts of ‘Jai’ and ‘Hari Bol’ in Odisha,” he added.
The day is also celebrated as the birthday of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, mostly in Bengal, Puri in Odisha, Mathura and Vrindavan (in Uttar Pradesh), said Arti Paul co-coordinator of the programme.
“The festival, ‘Dol Jatra’, ‘Dol Utsav’ or ‘Dol Purnima’ is said to be initiated by the king Indradyumna in Vrindavan, which continues for 5 days, starting from the Shukla-Chaturdashi of Phalguna,” she added.
In honour of Agni and to worship an image of Lord Krishna is kept on a swing (dola) where devotees perform special pujas and offer their reverence, said Pompa a devotee.
The head of the family observes fast and prays to Lord Krishna and Agnidev. After all the traditional rituals over they smears gulal and offers “bhog” to both Krishna and Agnidev, she said.
Dress up in saffron-coloured clothes devotees also wears garlands of fragrant flowers they sing and dance to the accompaniment of musical instruments like Ektara, Dubri, Veena and other musical instruments in a bid to adore the God, said Dipa.
A lucky draw was also organized among the members participating in the program, 21 participants who got up in the draw and members of Chandan Studio were felicitated by the chief guest, said Chandan.
“The purpose of this event is to preserve our Bengali cultural and festival,” he added.
Children of Dhanbad’s prestigious dance school, Parul Dance Academy, Saratoswini Dance School, Hirapur and Saswati Dance Academy, Jharia participated in this program. At the end of the program, the music of Kushan Sengupta forced everyone to dance.
To make this program a success, Program Coordinators Aarti Sao, Pompa Pal, Sampa Sarkar, Jhoom, Sanjay Sengupta, Nupur, Deepa, Santosh Seal, Gaurav Modak, Santosh Das, Abhijit Rai from Factam, Rajkumar Singh in Chandan Studio’s production team , Brijendra Pandey, Rohit Gupta, Subhojit Ghoshal, Devashish Pal, Hemant, Chhotu Sao, Neelkamal and Ramesh Gandhi played and important role in making the event successful.