BY OUR STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHAI, Oct 11: Scrambling to touch her feet one last time, countless devotees across the State bade tearful goodbyes to their beloved Mother Goddess Durga as her idols were immersed in rivers and water bodies on Vijaya Dashami on Tuesday.
The banks of the Brahamputra and other rivers wore a festive look despite the slight drizzle as puja organisers came in colourful processions to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals to immerse idols of the Goddess and her four offsprings.
Hundreds of devotees, including the young, joined hands in gently lowering the idols into the rivers. An element of emptiness at the end of the biggest celebration in State overcame all and sundry.
Kasomarighat, Pandughat, Jaipurghat besides Tatimara on the city outskirts, as well as some stretches along the Brahmaputra, were the centres of attraction drawing a large number of people. Devotees danced all the way to the ghats to the pulsating beat of the dhaak (drums). The immersion ceremony symbolizes the end of the annual sojourn of the Mother Goddess to her parental home on Earth to bless her devotees before she returns to her husband Lord Shiva’s heavenly abode on Mount Kailash.
Elaborate security arrangements by city police as well as civic authorities were in place on various ghats of the river to ensure that the immersion of idols passed off peacefully.
Cranes were deployed at certain ghats to lift and extricate the remains of idols from the river to avoid pollution. Additiol lights have been put up at the immersion ghats and the flowers, clothes and metallic weapons were dumped in separate vats to avoid polluting the river.
Other than maintaining law and order during the immersion process, teams of river police and disaster magement groups patrolled the river.
Earlier in the morning, married women smeared the Goddess and her offspring with red vermilion and offered sweets, praying for the well-being of their families and long lives of their husbands.