Celebrating Nowruz

Yesterday was the festival of Nowruz, It's the Persian New Year and the celebration of start of the Spring season celebrated on the day of vernal equinox. Since the Zoroastrian roots are from the land of Persia, we too celebrate this festival. Within Zoroastrians there are 2 sects, which are Irani and Parsi, this is the festival of Irani's basically, but we Parsis too celebrate it, as our cultures are almost the same.

In countries like Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia, all central Asian countries celebrate Nowruz. There are big feast that are organized, bon fires rituals are done and the major activity of this festival is, setting up the Haft Sin table. On this table the main things that are placed are the seven items starting with S, which are all symbolic items, like sprouts, sweet pudding, garlic, dried fruits, apple, sumac spice and vinegar, all of these start with S in Persian language. These are the must items to be placed. Then additionally other things are also placed like coins, flowers, candle, mirror, goldfish, sweets, eggs and holy books. Traditionally the table is set for 13 days but many do it for 2 to 3 days also. During this time, friends and family are invited to seek blessings and celebrations are done.

Some of our friends do set up this table and then invite us to celebrate the festival together with them. Since last 2 days we have been doing that only. On Thursday evening we visited one of our very close friend, it was just the few of us our close circle who were there. Yesterday one of the family here in Muscat they invited the full community for this celebration at their residence. They have a big villa with a garden. We were almost 100 of us gathered to celebrate it together. It was like a community gathering only. Every year this family invites the full community to celebrate the festival together with them. It is a joy as we get to meet everyone under one roof.

This is from the last evening at the community gathering.

That's the Haft Sin table set up by my friend, whose home we visited on Thursday, it's a small and simple set up, with all the essentials that are required.

And this is the Haft Sin table set up by our friends whose home we visited yesterday, this is a lavish one with lots of things on it. There is no limit to what can be kept. It's individual choice. Whatever feels significant to you can be placed on the table.

It was a wonderful celebration, there was some traditional food which we relished and loads of chit chatting and fun with friends and yes loads of pictures also being clicked.

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