Navaratri Orange: How a Colour Can Glow, Gather, and Give

Every Navaratri I find myself drawn to the colour charts the season produces — each day, a different hue; each hue, a different mood. This year one colour is everywhere: bold festive orange — saffron, marigold, sunset — a shade that promises to ‘glow bright & turn heads’ on the dance floor and on the street spinzindia Instagram post.

Orange does three things at once: it energises, it announces, and it reminds. It’s energetic on the dandiya ground; it’s visible in night-time processions; and it carries deeper associations — courage, sacrifice, warmth — that have sat quietly behind our festivals for centuries.

But while I enjoy the play of colours, Navaratri also invites a pause: how do we celebrate with joy while remaining responsible to the larger community that surrounds us?

The festival plate and the festival palette

Food is part of the colour story. Navaratri menus shift to sattvik and regional favourites — sabudana khichdi, rajgira parathas, shrikhand or kesari for many — and neighbourhoods fill with stalls and community feasts Celebrate Navaratri with These Must-Try Dishes. Dandiya nights bring their own suite of sweets — malpua, shrikhand, mohanthal and more — which are part of the ritual and the memory Must-Try Sweet Dishes on Dandiya Night.

I love that. I also worry about two linked things: waste, and exclusion. Festivals create abundance — and often food and material excess. Plates end up half-eaten, decorative prints and packaging become single-use detritus, and warmth of hospitality doesn’t always reach those who need it most.

A few simple commitments for a brighter Navaratri

Here are practical habits I try to follow (and invite you to consider):

• Dress the orange, but choose sustainable fabrics — handloom cottons, khadi, or natural-dyed silks — so the glow isn’t bought at an environmental cost.
• If you host or potluck, cook intentionally: estimate portions conservatively, encourage sharing bowls rather than single-use plates, and label sitter-friendly portions for elders and kids.
• Promote “taste-first” servings at events: small tasting plates encourage people to try everything without wasting.
• If you buy sweets, prefer smaller boxes (or make a pact to share) and support local sweet makers rather than hyper-packaged, long-shelf items.

None of this is glamorous, but it keeps celebration honest.

Festival generosity — not showmanship

There is another deeper thread: festivals are a time when the privileged can actually make a structural difference. I’ve written about this before — about community kitchens, about how policy must ensure no hungry person is humiliated while seeking food, and how digital tools can make distribution transparent and humane (Community Kitchen? Never too late).

A few years back, when state schemes such as the Shiv Bhojan Thali were debated, I urged that reviews keep one central truth in mind: our moral obligation to ensure no citizen sleeps hungry. The scheme’s review and digital monitoring discussions reminded me how policy, technology and compassion must meet at the plate (Shiv Bhojan Thali scheme review).

If you are organising a community event this Navaratri, think beyond one-night charity and towards steady support: sponsor a weekday meal at a local community kitchen, donate thoughtfully to schemes that serve daily workers, or coordinate with local NGOs so excess food from events is collected and redistributed.

Why this matters — and why I say it now

I have argued before that standardising portions or regulating only the visible — say, the gram weight on a plate — is simplistic. Food quality, freshness, kitchen hygiene, and equitable access are the structural items that matter more (Standardization is not that simple). Over the years I’ve also written about the huge paradox we live with — overflowing granaries beside people who go hungry — and how simple discipline (and compassion) like not wasting food could change the picture profoundly (Food and Famine need not co-exist).

The core idea I want to press — and this is something I raised years ago and keeps feeling painfully relevant — is this: I had urged public discussion and practical solutions for community feeding and non-humiliating distribution long before the latest policy debates. Seeing the same challenges resurface gives me a strange mix of validation and urgency. If earlier suggestions were correct then, they remain relevant now; it’s time to act on them rather than simply revisiting the debate in committee rooms.

(If you’re interested in practical digital help to organise kitchens and avoid duplication — yes, I once proposed a mobile approach — the idea wasn’t fanciful: it was a way to make compassion accountable and efficient A Mobile App named Banmali).

A final thought for Navaratri

Wear orange with joy. Dance. Eat with gratitude. But let the festival glow extend — for one simple Navaratri practice — into one compassionate act: make sure a plate you touch can, if needed, be shared with someone who otherwise won’t have one.

If you want an immediate, concrete idea: ask your dandiya group to set aside the cost of one person’s plate per 10 participants and route that fund to a local midday-meal programme or community kitchen. Small rituals scale when we invite structure and persistence into them.

Navaratri shows us colours so we can notice contrasts — light and dark, abundance and lack. Let orange remind us: celebration is a verb that only gains meaning when it weds joy to responsibility.

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Regards,
Hemen Parekh