Sattu Teej, Kajri Teej or Badi Teej
Badi Teej, which falls on Krishna Paksh tritiya of the Bhadrapad month. This year it fell on August 12 2025. Badi Teej is widely celebrated in Rajasthan especially Jodhpur (where I am from 💙).
In my caste/community married women fast for their husband’s well being and overall health, whereas unmarried girls just be a part of the night’s puja.
For the fast, women wake up before sunrise to have a simple meal before starting the fast. This is called dhamoli or ardhratri.
Also, for Teej the girl’s family members of ‘Mayke Wale’ traditionally send auspicious garments and other suhaag ka samaan like Sindoor, blouse piece, bangles, bindis etc. and most importantly the Sattu.
After that women cannot eat or drink till the moon comes up at night, and after completing the fast they only eat fruits and vegetables. I swear guys it must be soooo tough but my mom is just so nonchalant like. I am actively trying and failing to control my bigback self from snacking every 3-4 hours, and this woman is just causally doing all the housework. I mean moms get extra motivation I swear on fast days to do extra work and plus they refuse any help ToT.
Then for the puja we make Teej Mata using a need plant branch and making what is called a ‘Talai’, which is basically making a small pool like structure using soil and poring milk in it.
For Teej Puja Sattu is the main offering. Sattus come in a variety of types like, Chana Dal Sattu, Kitti Sattu, Goond Giri Sattu (the one we made) etc. The popular choice is to make Chana Dal Sattu.
Another vegetable called Kachra is also traditionally eaten after the fats is completed (sadly could not find kachra here), and is cooked for the family the next day.
There are many stories that are done at the puja some are:-
The Aak Tree and the Neem tree
For the puja you generally see 7 object’s reflection in the milk talai (I swear guys it is a hard job trying to see the reflection). The seven things we saw were:-
the diya flame (the trickiest one to see)
pearls (from the necklace)
Also luckily this time the moon came as early as it does on Teej at 10:30 and the fast was a success. Otherwise when I lived in Maharashtra during August it always rained and it would be very hard to see the moon, and god forbid sometimes it could even started raining so we just worshipped the moon through WhatsApp.