Teej festival is celebrated during the arrival of rainy
season, every year in the Hindu Month of Shravan (August). This
festival is also dedicated to the Goddess Parvati.The tradition is
that females both girls and women adorn themselves in colourful
leharia sarees or costumes, and offer puja to Goddess Parvati and
prayed for conjugal bliss and happiness. Many couples come to the
city, singing and dancing, on bullock carts, camel carts, and open
tractor-trailers and villagers come to watch it in large numbers and
buy knick-knacks from the stalls on the footpaths of the main
bazars..
Teej is basically a women's festival and celebrates the return back
of Parvati to the abode of Shiva, her husband. Teej, mainly for
married women who idolize Parvati for her devotion to her husband,
who keep a full day fast for the long life of their husband. The
fast is a strict one during which the women can not take sip of
water. Unmarried girls also do the fast to achieve husband like
Shiva. The end of festival is with exchange of gifts and the
arrivals of Shiva to escort Parvati home and the husbands to fetch
their wives.
During the festival, the ladies decorate their hands and feet with
Mehndi. Special Mehndi motifs also called laheria and ghewar are
applied to match the mood of Teej. It is a famous fact that the
intensity of a man's love for his wife can be gauged from the color
of henna on the wife's palm. The darker the henna, the more a man
loves his wife. You can also find this festival in the places like
Lucknow and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
