Dussehra Festival Special Thali ~ Simple Delicious Food Recipes

Dussehra Festival Special Thali showcases Vegetarian dishes prepared during the festival. A balanced thali with the typical South Indian dishes that are easy to cook on the hectic days.

Navratri is a festival dedicated to the worship of the Hindu deity Shakti. The word Navaratri literally means nine nights in Sanskrit, Nava meaning nine and Ratri meaning nights. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of Shakti/Devi are worshipped. The 10th day is commonly referred to as Vijayadashami or “Dussehra.”

I have been observing Navratri pooja since 2009 and have been making special Neveidyam for daily pooja based on the colour to be followed for each day. You can read more about the details in my Navratri Special dishes that I have compiled.

Importance of Dussehra:

Navratri is an important Hindu festival, with all ten days celebrated with great zeal. The last two days, Ayudha Pooja and the Vijayadhasami very special.

Cleaning of the house starts a week before and by the time Navratri comes, your house is stick and span. “Astra Puja” or “Worship of Instruments is the other name. So on the Ayudha Pooja, we do pooja for the instruments, machines, weapons, books, and musical instruments.

Amma cleans all the appliances, applies Kumkuma as well. It is hilarious when Daddy sees this and keeps wiping it off. Now she has sort of curbed this habit of hers.

On Ayudha Pooja, we observe Saraswati Pooja as well, where we keep all our books and do pooja. Kids take advantage of this and don’t study during the day. However, we have to study after evening pooja, when they have to take the books for studying.

Dishes prepared for the festival!

Sharing some of the Ayuda Pooja celebrations we had done in the past.

Athamma always makes elaborate lunch for Vijayadasami or Dussehra. At my parent’s place, Amma makes special dishes celebrating my brother’s birthday because my brother was born on a Vijaya Dashami, so he gets to celebrate two birthdays!

Ever since I started observing Navratri in our home, I make Dussehra, the tenth-day special as well following Hubby’s dear tradition. The special meal always has Lemon Rice, with either Red Chili Dal or Green Chili Dal, two vegetables – one is a dry saute, one roasted, along with some version of vada, sweet poli, rasam, curd rice followed by either payasam/Kesari.

When we offer food to God with all dishes prepared, we offer it in a banana leaf. You can see how it looks when Amma does it for Ugadi. She calls this offering as Thaliga, the taste that comes of mixing all the dishes is something very unique and if you are not used to it, you will not like it.

Hubby’s family doesn’t follow the tradition of offering the entire meal to God, so I haven’t done it myself. The thali that I am sharing today was prepared for the Dussehra 2019 and the new dish we prepared was the Chow Chow pesarapappu kura.

Dusshera Festival Thali