Bandra Fair 2009 – Mount Mary


mount mary church

mount mary church

The Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, more commonly known as Mount Mary, is a Roman Catholic church in the city of Mumbai, India.

The church is one of the most visited churches in the city located in the suburb of Bandra. Every September, the feast of St. Mary is celebrated on the Sunday following 8 September, the birthday of the Virgin Mary. This is a week long celebration known as the Bandra Fair and is visited by thousands of people.

The church stands on a hillock about 80 metres above sea level overlooking the Arabian Sea. It draws lakhs of devotees and pilgrims annually. Many faithful attest to the miraculous powers of St. Mary.

During the Bandra Fair, tens of thousands visit the shrine. The shrine attracts people from all faiths who pray to the statue for thanksgiving or requesting of favors.

In 1760, the church was rebuilt and the statue was substituted with a statue of Our Lady of Navigators in St. Andrew’s church nearby.

This statue has an interesting legend. It goes that a Koli fisherman dreamt that he would find a statue in the sea. The statue was found floating in the sea between 1700 and 1760. A Jesuit Annual Letter dated to 1669 and published in the book St. Andrew’s Church, Bandra (1616–1966) supports this claim.

The Bandra Fair 2009

This is the most awaited event of the year is come up. Popularly known as the Bandra Fair, the festival is celebrated on Mother Mary’s birth anniversary and people of all faiths throng to seek her blessing.

The streets take on a carnival-like atmosphere, with shops and mini-bazaars offering everything from food (yummy), shopping opportunities (@ good prices) and joyrides (super enjoyment).

Street plays, musical concerts, book readings and food festivals also become a part of the celebrations.

2009 : This year the fair starts from 13th Sunday 2009 to 20th Sunday 2009, Its basically for one week.

Also check my new post for: Bandra Fair 2010 Mount Mary.

Basic AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)


Ajax, sometimes written as AJAX (shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML), is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications.

With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page.


/**
* Declare global variable....
* @param string elementName this is to identify the elemnt in which the response should be dispalyed. like as div id (required)
*/
var elementName = "";

/**
* Open a connection to the specified URL, which is
* intended to provide an XML message. The specified data
* is sent to the server as parameters. This is the same as
* calling xmlOpen(“POST”, url, toSend, responseHandler).
*
* @param string url The URL to connect to.
* @param string toSend The data to send to the server; must be URL encoded.
* @param function responseHandler The Javascript function handling server response.
* @param function elementIdentify The elemnt in which the response should be dispalyed.
*/
function xmlPost(url, toSend, responseHandler, elementIdentify)
{
elementName = elementIdentify;
xmlOpen(“POST”, url, toSend, responseHandler);
}

/**
* Open a connection to the specified URL, which is
* intended to provide an XML message. No other data is
* sent to the server. This is the same as calling
* xmlOpen(“GET”, url, null, responseHandler).
*
* @param string url The URL to connect to.
* @param function responseHandler The Javascript function handling server response.
* @param function elementIdentify The elemnt in which the response should be dispalyed.
*/
function xmlGet(url, responseHandler, elementIdentify)
{
elementName = elementIdentify;
xmlOpen(“GET”, url, null, responseHandler);
/**
* This code can be used if you need to call the required function after every interval i.e seconds..
* setTimeout(“xmlGet(‘products.php’, notesResponseHandler)”,3000);
* setTimeout(“alert(‘products.php’)”,3000);
*/
}

/**
* Open a connection to the specified URL, which is
* intended to respond with an XML message.
*
* @param string method The connection method; either “GET” or “POST”.
* @param string url The URL to connect to.
* @param string toSend The data to send to the server; must be URL encoded.
* @param function responseHandler The Javascript function handling server response.
*/
function xmlOpen(method, url, toSend, responseHandler)
{
// alert(url);
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{
// browser has native support for XMLHttpRequest object
req = new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else if (window.ActiveXObject)
{
// try XMLHTTP ActiveX (Internet Explorer) version
req = new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”);
}

if(req)
{
req.onreadystatechange = responseHandler;
req.open(method, url, true);
req.setRequestHeader(“content-type”,”application/x-www-form-urlencoded”);
req.send(toSend);
}
else
{
alert(‘Your browser does not seem to support XMLHttpRequest.’);
}
}

/**
* Handler for server’s response to notes.xml request.
* Notes are pulled from notes.xml and replace the
* contents of the DIV with id ‘notesSection’.
*/
function notesResponseHandler()
{
// Make sure the request is loaded (readyState = 4)
if (req.readyState == 4)
{
// Make sure the status is “OK”
if (req.status == 200)
{
var swappableSection = document.getElementById(elementName);
var str = req.responseText;
swappableSection.innerHTML = str;
}
else
{
alert(“There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n” +
req.statusText);
}
}
}

/**
* When a file gets included in the page….
* Call the function on load or on click….
*/
//xmlGet(‘products.php’, notesResponseHandler);
//alert(‘called’);