Vasant Panchami

Vasant Panchami

Date: 16^th February 2021

Vasant Panchami, also called Sarasvati Puja in honour of the goddess Saraswati, is a festival that marks the preparation for the onset of Spring. From Hindi, it translates to the fifth day of Spring and hence, falls on the fifth day of Magha month, Shukla Paksha of the Hindu calendar. The festival also celebrates the agricultural fields ripening with yellow flowers of the mustard crop. People celebrate the festival by wearing yellow coloured clothes, decorating home with yellow flowers and offering yellow flowers to the goddess Saraswati since yellow is considered her favourite colour.

Saraswati symbolizes creative energy and is also considered the goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom and learning.

On this day, especially students worship the goddess and seek her blessings to eliminate ignorance.

IBA is also known as Mini-Indiapura, as it is home to students from different parts of India who live like a family. Hence, IBA celebrates every festival with students actively participating under the guidance of the YMCC Committee.

This year also, as part of Vasant Panchami, Saraswati Puja was done on 16th February 2021. The puja was done in Santripti, the preparations for which started from 7:00 AM. It began with students inviting the faculty & staff members, seniors and batch mates to be a part of the puja. Then, the worship area was decorated with flowers, and an image, of Goddess Saraswati, was placed for worship. She was then honoured with a tilak of Kumkum & Akshat, and an oil lamp was lighted and put on her right side for worshipping. Flowers & bhog were offered, with aarti being performed in praise of Goddess Saraswati, after which there was Pushpanjali. In the end, Prasad got distributed to all the faculty & staff members as well as students.