SRINAGAR: Leaders of Kashmir’s two principal parties joined the Khir Bhawani Mela at Tulmulla in Ganderbal. They interacted with the pilgrims and extended them greetings over the annual festival.
“Delighted to participate in Zyeshth Ashtami festivities at Tulmull. It was reassuring to get a glimpse of muslims & pandits bonding,” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said in a tweet, after returning from Tulmula. She expressed her eagerness to witness the coexistence of Hindu-Muslim-Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir once again. “This is Kashmiriyat woven to the idea of India, in stark contrast to the blatant disregard for the constitution in ‘Temple of democracy today’.”
The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Provincial Nasir Aslam Wani Sogami visited the Mata Kheer Bhawani Temple in Tikker, Kupwara to extend warm greetings to the Kashmiri Pandit community on the annual festival of Zyeth Atham being observed at the shrine.
Interacting with the Kashmir Pandits, who had made journeys from across the country to the temple, Nasir said the festivity is a glaring example of the syncretic cultural ethos of Jammu and Kashmir, where people from diverse religious backgrounds join the festivity with the spirit of bonhomie and inclusivity.
It was a huge rush to the main temple in Ganderbal. Barefooted devotees carried rose petals as they paid homage to the goddess, while men took a dip in the nearby stream, seeking purification and spiritual blessings. The Ragnya Devi temple reverberated with chants of hymns, as devotees offered milk and kheer (rice pudding) to the sacred spring within the premises.
Those who could not reach the five temples in Kashmir where the celebrations take place, reported to Kheer Bhawani Peeth in the Janipur area in Jammu. It is a replica of the Tulmulla shrine that came up after the majority of the community members migrated to Jamu in the early 1990s.
