caste and community make no barrier during divine union

People may not accept Inter-caste and inter-community marriage in their family, but when it is the case of Lord Shiva such thing is hardly come as a barrier as people gladly accept it with out any hesitation. Society sees nothing wrong in Lord’s marriage in any caste or in any community. Every one participates happily to enjoy the event.  In ‘Sital Sasthi’ festival that concluded on Friday one becomes parent of Maa Parvati no matter in which caste or community he belongs to.  

Lord Shiva Baba Somnath of Jharuapara got married in a Bania house as the kanyapita (bride’s father) of Jharuapara Yatra committee Prahallad Agrawal belongs to bania (Marwari) community and lord Shiva Baba sitaleswar got married in a Rajput house as Kanyapita of Badbazar Yatra committee belongs to (Rajput) Gujarati community. Like wise Lord Shiva of Modipara Jageswar baba got married in a Dora caste as the kanyapita of Modipara Jatra committee Akhayay Dora belongs to Dora caste. Only Lord Shiva Bam Barad balunkeswar of Nandapara got married in the same caste as the kanyapita (bride’s father) Himansu Sekhar Nanda belongs to Brahmin community.

“We hardly think of the caste and community of the applicant when we select him as kanyapita of maa Parvati. Earlier convention was to confine it with the community. But showily with the change of time we have expanded it as god does not belong to any particular community or caste”, Saroj Dalpat, president of Jharuapara Yatra committee said.

In the week long festival the center point is that goddess Parvati becomes the daughter a human being who performs the marriage like his own daughter with all possible rituals and customs. When father of lord Shiva is fixed and it is performed by a family in generation, father (kanyapita) of goddess Parvati changes every year. Yatra committees decide it from among the applicants. Yatra is mainly organized in three temples of Jharuapara, Nandapara and Modipara. But over the past few year youths of several other places including Badbazar, Thakurpara and Budharaja have taken initiatives to begin Yatra in their respective places.  

 On the other hand the Yatra committees have switched over to folk and cultural programmes to attract the people after administration decided not to allow vulgarity in the festival. The Bihu of Assam and Bhagra of Punjab and folkdance of Chhattisgarh were main attraction in the festival.