Navaratri begins this week, and marks the period of nine nights when female divinity is celebrated all over India. Women decorate their verandas with oil lamps to welcome their friends and show off their displays of dolls, collected for the celebration. A sweet called shundal is made especially for this festival of female friendship.

Poet and novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni paints a vivid picture of Navaratri in America--
read the rest here http://www.shivasarms.blogspot.com