Navratri, a festival of devotion, dance and delight, turned into a nine-night daylight robbery for many khelaiyas in Ahmedabad this year.From sky-high entry passes to extortionate food and parking rates, organisers seemed to swap dandiya sticks for cash registers. How else do you explain garba passes at ₹3,500 per person? Or a ₹20 water bottle sold for ₹100 inside the grounds? Even simple snacks like Maggi and samosas cost three to four times their usual price, leaving a bitter aftertaste no dandiya could mask.Parking was another nightmare. Cars were left more than a kilometre away, forcing visitors to cough up ₹200 for “official” parking and then another ₹100 for a rickshaw ride to the venue. And once inside, some were pressured into renting colour-coded attire for as much as ₹1,000—just to fit in with the theme.Overcrowding only worsened matters. Organisers oversold passes, packing more people than the grounds could hold. Forget dancing with abandon—many struggled to even clap.Parents, too, felt the squeeze as youngsters demanded to attend these glittery but costly garbas hosted at over a hundred farmhouses and party plots. Each venue competed to outdo the other in scale—and in fleecing wallets.The greed did not go unnoticed. Several venues faced GST raids for cooking their books while cooking overpriced snacks. But with Navratri 2025 now wrapped up, one question lingers: will next year see stricter action against errant organisers, or will khelaiyas continue to pay through the nose for what was once a free-spirited celebration?
