Chhath Puja: Union of Earth, Mother and Man: Pranay Vikram Singh - chhath puja a celebration of earth mother and humanity

Updated: Sat, 25 Oct 2025 04:47 (IST) Chhath Puja is a festival that symbolizes the union of earth, mother and man. It is a festival to express gratitude towards nature, in which the setting sun is also saluted. Chhath marks the reunification of the family and one experiences greatness in simplicity. This festival connects us with our roots and teaches us to express gratitude towards life. Have you ever seen that moment in the morning, when Mother Earth stops breathing before the sun rises? This is the time when Chhath Maiya descends… in the minds and hearts of people… If you haven’t seen it then understand that you haven’t seen India in its full form yet. That night descending on the ghat, the flame trembling in the waves of the river, and thousands of faces flashing with that flame, that is India. It is his soul. The feeling that is there in Chhath does not come from any religious scripture, it comes from the earth. In this purity does not come from books, it comes from bread and sweat. When women walk with soup on their heads on the town’s dirt road, all of nature seems to have moved… children follow them. Someone is carrying a bundle, someone is running with a fruit and the old grandmother sitting at the house’s threshold pours out blessings with her eyes. The smell of jaggery in the air, the coolness of wet ground underfoot and the sound of birds in the air… there is a wonderful rhythm everywhere. No slogans, no drums… just the quiet music of faith. This scene is not an event, it is a celebration of life. That light of faith that does not burn from the sun, but from the heart. This festival is not a ritual, it is the experience of divinity residing in the body of the earth. Temples are not decorated during Chhath, houses are decorated…in the same way the mind is also washed. Mother covers the courtyard early in the morning, Tulsi decorates the chaura, children run to fetch soup and porridge, father goes out to Saryu or Ganga Ghat. It seems as if the Tulsi of the house is also smiling and the deity kept in the corner is also quietly watching… again the same affection, the same relationship, the same obeisance. Remove advertisement Just read news The most beautiful scene of Chhath is when the whole family comes together. Those who are abroad are looking at the photos of the village ghat on their phones, those who are in the village are looking at the sun in a bucket full of water on the terrace. Somewhere mother’s song, somewhere children’s laughter, somewhere grandmother’s silent prayer, this is the echo of the house. This festival is not only worship, it is also a family reunion, the smell of soil and the clarity of the spirit. No one can explain the real meaning of Chhath, it can be felt. It is a wonderful feeling of Chhath that the setting sun is saluted in it. For the one who thanks even the waning one is indebted to life in the truest sense. The water offered to the setting sun seems to say, “O Lord, all that I have received is enough.” I wonder where such a humble feeling comes from within a person who is immersed in splendor and shows that he bows even to the setting light? The scene of fasting women descending on the banks of the river, the pallu of their saree dipped in water, the glow of devotion in their eyes is nothing less than that of a temple. At that time, the sun is reflected in the eyes of the woman coming down to the ghat, but her prayer is for the family… may the son get a job, may the daughter have a good son-in-law, may the old mother’s back pain go away. There is no mathematics or philosophy in his penance, there is only love, and love is the greatest religion. The sun is setting, but hope is not. The flickering light of each lamp says that “Drowning is not the end, it is the prelude to a new rise.” The night passes, wet clothes dry in the cool breeze and then the first blush of dawn touches the horizon. When the sun rises, the universe seems to give birth again. “Chhath Maiya songs” resound in every ghat, every courtyard… “The bahangiyas of glass and bamboo…” and the sweetness of behore is mixed in every voice. This sunrise is not only light, it is the rebirth of life. It shows that the earth also has the same radiance as the sun, one just lacks the feeling to bow down to it. There is no pretense in Chhath. Earth stove, bamboo sticks, jaggery kheer, the taste of thekua, and mother’s penance… this is the grandeur of this festival. Here there is no need for any grand mall or decoration, for the beauty of faith is not born of display, but of simplicity. It is the same society that distributes Prasad even in famine, lights lamps even in fatigue and gives gratitude even in scarcity. At that moment the house ceases to be just a house, it becomes a ‘temple’. It seems as if even the gods and goddesses of the house get involved in that devotion. The spirits of the ancestors seem to float in the air, giving blessings and saying that “where this faith is alive, life will never wither.” Women who fast Chhath are the greatest ascetics of this age. Without salt, without taste, without water for four days, but there is no fatigue on the face, there is satisfaction. There is no fast in their eyes, but the lamp of faith burns. It is that penance, which is not written in any Veda or Upanishad, but is inscribed in the soil of every village, in the heart of every mother. This festival is a feeling that stays alive together in the scent of mother’s hands, father’s fatigue, children’s laughter and grandmother’s silent prayer. When lamps are lit on the ghat of the village, when the basil of the house is filled with water, when the rising sun smiles in the sky… then creation itself seems to say that “This land is not only fertile, it is worshipped.” Chhath is not only worship, it is thanksgiving to nature. It is gratitude to the Sun that tended the fields, ripened the grains, the water that sustains life and the Earth that sustains everything. When the lamps flicker on the banks of the river, the earth seems to say… “Man, don’t stay away from me, I am your mother.” I saw an old grandmother standing in the water, a song on her lips, an ocean of memory in her eyes. Her granddaughter standing nearby was the same girl. The song repeats, the rhythm is slightly distorted, but the feeling is the same, as if generations are merging into each other. There is no melody in the songs sung during Chhath, but there is a depth that reaches to the soul. There is such a mixture of happiness and sadness in them that the listener forgets himself. He understands that this earth is still alive, because here faith still springs from an earthen stove and not from an iron machine. Chhath is the moment when man connects himself not with God, but with his soil. And perhaps this is his greatest prayer… that as long as this faith survives, this country will also continue to beat. And when it all ends… the ghat begins to empty, but that smell, that devotion, that belongingness lingers in the air. It seems as if the river is saying… “Go back, now the sun will continue to burn in you.”