Karwa Chauth: Moon shines bright; women end fast

New Delhi [India], November 2 : As the festival of Karwa Chauth was celebrated all over the nation on Wednesday, married women marked the occasion by performing rituals upon the sighting of the Moon.
As the moon was sighted in different parts of the country, women broke their day-long arduous fast of Karwa Chauth.
The festival was kick-started with excitement by women across the country including politicians.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak and his wife Namrata Pathak also performed the rituals of Karwa Chauth.

In Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his wife performed rituals on the occasion of Karwa Chauth at their residence in Bhopal.

Priti Srivas, a resident from Jabalpur shared her experience of the festival.

"From the morning itself, we were excited about Karwa Chauth, we woke up at 4 am and got ready, did puja and made so many types of foods...didn't know how the day went so fast...we had to wait for around 1.5 hours as Moon was not visible at first..." she said.
Karwa Chauth is one of the most important festivals celebrated mainly by Hindu married women in India. It is the celebration of marriage, wherein the wife fasts the entire day so as to be blessed with a long and healthy life for her husband and begins with a pre-dawn meal called Sargi, which married women receive from their mother-in-law.
On Karwa Chauth, married women follow the 'nirjala' fast without food and water, and the Moon plays extremely important role in fasting.
After watching the Moon from a sieve, fasting women offer Arghaya to the Moon and break the fast by eating a morsel of food and a sip of water from their husband's hands.