Navratri and Durga Puja Are the Same Nine Nights, Dressed Differently

Navratri and Durga Puja are the same nine nights of the same goddess, and the clothes have almost nothing in common. People who move cities discover this the hard way, usually by turning up to a garba in a Banarasi.

What the two occasions actually are

Durga Puja, in Bengal and wherever Bengalis are: a devotional and social festival built around pandal visits, family meals and evenings out. Sarees, kurtas, sit-down dinners. The signature look is red and white.

Navratri, in Gujarat and western India: nine nights of dancing. Garba and dandiya, for hours, standing up. The signature look is the chaniya choli, and the practical requirement is a skirt that flares when you spin and a top you can raise your arms in.

What does not transfer

If you are dressing for both

Buy separately. There is no single outfit that does both well, and the compromise garment is worse at each than a dedicated one.

• For garba nights: a croptop lehenga in a light fabric, or a choli palazzo set if you want the look with less skirt to manage. See also lehengas.
• For the Puja days: sarees — the six-day plan sets out which weight on which day.
• The overlap: a good Anarkali genuinely works at both, which is the one exception worth knowing.

The nine colours

The Navratri colour-per-day convention is real, widely followed in western India, and largely ignored in Bengal. If you are attending Gujarati Navratri events, it is worth following — turning up in the day's colour is half the fun of it. If you are at a Bengali Puja, nobody is keeping score.

Everything for both is inside festive collection.