On New Year Eve families likely to celebrate by visiting religious places. This year more people like to pray at devotional and religious site in order to celebrate coming of new year. The new trend of choosing places of devotion over discotheques, farm houses or at home is growing with every passing year.
The shrine of Khwaja Garib Nawaz in Ajmer and the Brahma temple in Pushkar are pulling hordes of visitors from across the country to usher in the New Year in spiritual mood. Both the Dargah and Pushkar are decorated with lights on the eve. Here devotees participate in special prayers amid qawwalis in Dargah and chanting of mantras at Pushkar lake to welcome the New Year.
Syed Daniyal Chishty, a gaddi nashin at the dargah said celebrations comprising of prayers, distributing cakes and sweets among fellow devotees and also enjoying the Mughlai delicacies happen at nearby restaurants. “The New Year celebrations are gaining vast popularity here. We have been receiving queries from people about the ceremonies, weather and hotel bookings,” said Chishty.
Riyaz Khan, owner of Zannat group of hotels in Ajmer, said, “We have 100% occupancy on New Year in all our hotels, especially from Punjab. Most of the visitors spend the night at the shrine and leave for Pushkar to witness the first sunrise of the New Year.”
For many visitors Pushkar is another destination for celebrating New Year in serenity rather than ushering in the New Year in a drunken state or while dancing. Explaining the reason, Akshat Singhal, who has a planet ‘12599 Singhal’ to his name, has planned to spend the New Year’s Eve in Dargah and at Pushkar.
“Parties create lot of commotion and chaos. I prefer to begin my first day with spiritual solace,” said Singhal, who lives in the US.
Travel agencies have confirmed significant rise in bookings for religious sites. Piyush Sharma, director of Nomad Travellor, confirmed that bookings for religious places like Ajmer, Pushkar, Banaras, Ujjain, Amritsar, Shirdi and even Tirupati have been done.
“Families don’t get time to hangout together. The New Year gives them holidays and they look for peaceful locations to be with the family and experience spiritualism,” said Sharma.
src: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-12-30/jaipur/45708237_1_pushkar-temple-pushkar-lake-new-year