Former Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi will not celebrate Chhath this year. Considered to be the main festival of the state, the four-day event, which begins this year on November 6, has figured in Rabri Devi and her husband, Lalu Prasad’s, calendar. Earlier, she used to perform the rituals at the swimming pool of her official residence on 10, Circular Road, in Patna, and pictures of her would be splashed across all newspapers in the city the next day. When the older swimming pool in the house was filled with sand two years ago, she got a new pool constructed on the premises to continue with her rituals. From 2009 to 2012, she celebrated the festival at 25, Tughlaq Road, in New Delhi — Prasad’s official residence as central minister. Last year, too, she celebrated it with much fanfare in the company of her children. This year, plagued by arthritis that prevents her from sitting in the same position for hours, and diabetes, which deters her from fasting as Chhath devotees do, the former chief minister will have to take a break from a 36-year-old practice.
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