Diwali- the Festival of Lights

I mentioned in a post a while ago that Diwali is the peak of the Indian holiday season. Well in the past few days I have gotten to experience just that- the ultimate fusion of exuberant, nonstop celebrating and regimented religious tradition that is Diwali. If you are familiar with any Hindu holidays, it would most likely be this one, and there is a reason for that. Diwali is basically the best parts of all the holidays I have ever experienced (good food, lots of people, bright decorations, fireworks) rolled into five spectacular days. So while Hindus do celebrate a lot of things, this is the one to remember.

Two of Ben's cousins, himself, and me at a firework stand.

Preparation for Diwali starts pretty far in advance. One thing that it is known for is cleaning, typically done to welcome the gods into your home. Before the celebration begins, everyone buys new clothes as well, to be worn during the Pooja, or worship. This can all be done in the week or so leading up to it. However, unlike in the States, where commercial Christmas more or less begins just after Halloween, the major preparations happen the night before hand. Almost overnight, standard roadside shops transformed into concrete vases, to hold their brightly lit and exuberantly coloured paper lantern bouquets. And joining these everyday shops, you suddenly find rows upon rows of firework stalls. So the real Diwali preparation begins with everyone rushing out to buy their household adornments and what will soon become the most festive displays.

Another aspect of Diwali that starts long before hand are the visits. It is seen as a time to visit family and friends, and in particular to give gifts of sweets. In the course of a day, our house was suddenly being bombarded with treats of all kinds, mostly the traditional Indian kind which are small, dense, and extremely sweet. Not to mention our own endeavor of baking upwards of 25 small cakes to send off to friends of our own. I have a theory that the tradition of dancing is simply to combat the influx of delicious food that accompanies the holiday season.

An example of rangoli, which the teachers at school made.

Diwali celebrates a lot of different things, but it is mainly the celebration of the god Rama returning from his exile. So a lot of the decorations have to do with welcoming. I mentioned the paper lanterns which you can buy in the markets and are traditionally hung and lit up outside your home. There is also the tradition of rangoli, which is a coloured powder used to decorate the threshold of your house. You sprinkle the powder in patterns outside your door, as a very bright reminder that all are welcome. Then there are the diyas, or lanterns, which are placed either on the rangoli or just outside the home. Traditionally they form a line leading up to the house, to guide the gods, but often they are just sprinkled around decoratively.

Ben's grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and Mom

Like I said, one of the larger aspects of Diwali is visiting, which means it is generally spent with your family. So we spent the first couple of days in Ben's grandparent's house in Jalna, along with some of his other relatives. His grandparent's had their house built a little bit outside of the city, so it was a nice calm place to spend our holiday. Family is extremely important in India, much more so than in the United States, where you are mostly concerned with your direct relatives. Here, all of the cousins are really close, and the Jalna house is the perfect place for everyone to come and be together.

The intricate set-up for Laxmi Pooja

The main day that we celebrated was the 26th, which is the day of Laxmi Pooja. Laxmi Pooja is the specific set of prayers that happen during Diwali. The interesting thing about the pooja, and a lot of Hindu traditions in general actually, is that no one quite understands it. It is made up of a lot of very specific actions involving various flowers, fruits, silver coins, spices, etc. and of course a lot of singing. But very few people actually know what the specific aspects of the pooja are for, or what their overall significance is. Nonetheless, I found it extremely interesting, because when set up it creates this beautiful and almost artistic display. And the prayers themselves seem to run on forever in a single breath, endless strands pulled from a collective pool of religious knowledge. The worship finally culminated in a prayer song, in which everyone clapped the rhythm along with the pandit (the man leading the pooja, someone familiar with the prayers).

Ben and I setting off some firecrackers.

When the pooja was over, we started in on the main reason Diwali is so universally loved- the fireworks. I have never actually set off fireworks myself (I probably have the ever safety conscious laws of the United States to thank for that) so personally I was really excited about this. We had bought an entire cardboard box full the night before, and they were just waiting for us to begin the actual celebration. At this point we could already hear innumerable crackers going off throughout the city, as they had been for days, and our's quickly joined the mix. The fireworks ranged from colourful fountains, to spinning sparks, and all the way to the huge bursts in the sky that Americans are of course very familiar with. We also had box after box of sparklers, another Fourth of July favourite, to actually set the fireworks off. By the time we finished our entire box, the noises in the background had only multiplied. Though our celebrating was coming to a close, the joys of Diwali would continue long into the night. After all, it is the Festival of Lights.

Me with some sparklers, or phooljari (flower sticks)

Diwali also celebrates the New Year. The Hindu calendar is lunar, so the months end and begin on different days than our calendar. The day after Laxmi Pooja is considered the actual New Year day, and even more so than the others, this is the real day of visiting. So we headed off to Jalna to wish some friends a happy New Year. On our final stop, as is to be expected, they insisted that we have some of their food. They had made dashmi, which is a sweet flat bread, and probably one of my favourite lunches. Unfortunately, I was recovering from a stomach bug, so I wan't able to eat very much. But one thing that older Indian woman are particularly known for is being very insistent on just how much food you should be eating. And lucky for us this household happened to have three of them. Flitting between kitchen and dining room, each would bombard us in a never ending push of dashmi, chutnies, subji, and of course, desserts. Just when I had successfully communicated to one in Hindi that I was finished, another would sweep up from behind, refreshing the culinary infantry. But eventually the force-feeding did end (begrudgingly) and we made our way home.

That about ended our Diwali celebrations, though the holiday itself is actually five days long. Brian (Ben's brother) and his roommate Michel arrived on the 27th, so things have picked up around here. Of course, we celebrated their arrival with yet more fireworks, because why waste a perfectly good opportunity to blow things up? Besides, what better way for them to arrive than with explosives bright enough to cut through even the deepest jet lag? As for me, now I have the rest of my Diwali holiday from school to enjoy, since they give the kids enough time to travel and visit family. But around here, there will always be plenty to do.

Little Cabin in the Woods

When I first wrote about my time at Golden Jubilee School, I mostly talked about my time in the Jubilee kids room. But for a while I have mainly been working with the class just one year above them, in Lower Kindergarten. A few weeks into my time at the school, I was asked if there were any action songs I could teach to the LKG kids for an upcoming competition. That is something that happens a lot in India by the way- schools compete all the time in academic competitions, often spending weeks before hand in preparation. Now that I was at the school, they would have a bigger pool of English songs to draw from. They were hoping to get something brand new, that the judges had never heard, to give them a leg up.

Now for those readers from Camp Echo, this is going to seem absolutely ridiculous, and believe me it does to me too. The first thing I thought of, for some reason, was actually a camp song. Now the way that I taught it to the kids is completely different from the way it is generally sung, but hey you have to adapt for your audience a little bit. You have probably already guessed it from my title, but the song that I chose was the one that KTT sings, about the rabbit who seeks refuge in a cabin in the woods. So I am sure all of you can imagine how hilarious I found it to see twenty Indian school children singing that song, when it is normally being performed by KTT in all her overly expressive glory.

I spent at least an hour everyday teaching the kids that song, having added verses and a piano accompaniment. It was a difficult task, overcoming the language barrier and even more so, the collective attention span of twenty four-year-olds. But eventually they learned not only the words, but the actions that went with them. Sure the tune had been a little warped in the process, and it wasn't the original set of camp lyrics, but the kids were ready for the competition.

The competition itself took place in Aurangabad, which in and of itself was exciting for the kids- getting to take off from school and go into the big city. There were about 28 other schools there, which was a little daunting because we were an unknown group. This was the first time pre-primary kids from Golden Jubilee had ever gotten to compete in this sort of thing, so we were arriving as the nameless small town school among well-established big city names. The song wasn't the only GJS representative however- we also had kids reciting nursery rhymes, taking part in "fancy dress" competitions, and acting out a skit I had also been coaching. We were set for a full day of sizing up our competition, and eventually the surprisingly nerve wracking experience of our own performance.

When it was our turn to go, I actually experienced a swell of pride, akin to that of corny movies about teachers who fight all odds to help a group of students reach greatness. I'm certainly not that inspirational teacher, but I could at least start to understand what those movies, with their flowery language and profound quotes about the power of the human spirit, are meant to evoke. But as hyperbolic as it may seem, some of what those movies have to say is true. More than the satisfaction of seeing my tangible help in the school, I was just amazed at what the kids had achieved. Our turn came about halfway through the group of schools, and I can honestly say that I already knew at that point that we had done a fantastic job. It was clear that we had worked hard to achieve the quality that the kid's exhibited, and I must say that was a huge confidence booster in terms of my place at the school.

The next day the competition continued, though I had not had a part in those performances so I stayed back. But it was also the day that they announced the top three spots for each contest. I was at home at the time, and I got a call from one of the other teachers at the school. She told me that not only had both the song and skit that I had worked so hard on placed second, but that our little no-name school had gotten the runner up trophy in the entire competition. I felt so honoured to be able to contribute to the unexpected success. And I feel like this success has easily given me a more solid understanding of the role that I play at the school. Since then I have been bouncing between pre-primary classes, teaching songs, stories, and skits- overall just lending a helping hand to give kids the full practice and attention that they need. I am still amazed that my first real attempt at teaching went so well, and it has been very encouraging for the rest of my time here.

I have been trying to attach the video of the kids' performance, but my Internet is not being very cooperative. I will go ahead and post this, but keep trying with the video. So hopefully you will all get to see what a great job they did very soon!

My First Visit to Davalwadi Village

It seems a little silly that I have been here for over a month now, and had yet to visit the actual village of Davalwadi until very recently. Mahyco is right next to the village, so though we are not actually in it, that is what we consider to be our general location. Most of the time when I am leaving the gates of Mahyco it is to go to Jalna, or occasionally to Aurgabad; up until this weekend it had never been to go to Davalwadi. But for the past few days a group of students from Bombay has been here to help out with Dekhon (the eye-care project Ben has been working on), and one of the first things they got to do was plant some trees in the village.
True, there aren't so many links between blindness prevention and foliage, but it is hard to find things for 20+ seventeen year olds to do just as they arrive. So this way, they at least wouldn't be idle, and they would get a chance to become acquainted with rural India, a place that is almost as alien to them as it was me. We pulled into the village and immediately saw at least twenty children running towards the bus. They mostly play in a field that is right next to the road, so a lot of them were there to begin with, awaiting our arrival. We stepped off the bus and they formed a sort of shell around us, looking on with curious smiles but, at first, never getting too close.

One by one the students brought saplings out, to be planted along the perimeter of the very same field the kids had been playing in. By the time the trees were out, a good deal of the village had come over to watch. Like most rural villages in this area, most of the people in Davalwadi exclusively speak Marathi, the local dialect. Some that are more educated speak Hindi as well, and some of the children said they were learning to read and write in Hindi, but regardless communication could be a bit difficult for our group, who were mostly unfamiliar with the language.

As the planting continued, the kids remained with us, curiously looking on. At first they were extremely shy, but they warmed up quickly, particularly when I asked if I could take their picture and they got to see themselves on a little camera screen. After a while Barkha, a relative of Ben's who has come to help out with the project, and I decided it would be a good time to bring out some toys that we had brought for the kids. We led them over to another clearing near the bus, brought out two loads of old play things, and as I'm sure you can imagine the kids went nuts. After a good five minutes of chaos though, things settled down and everyone had found something they could be happy with.

I spent the remainder of that day playing with the kids and their new finds. Once again, I was amazed at how understand young children can be about language gaps. They were happy to show off their new toys to me, sometimes asking questions but never getting too frustrated when I couldn't give them an answer. More than anything they were just happy to be getting so much attention from a stranger, and eager to show off in any way they could imagine.

After a while, a girl came up to me with a stuffed frog, and began insistently asking me something in Marathi. I smiled at her and nodded my head (though in India that takes the form of more of a waggle) and pointed to her animal happily, but this did not stop her questioning. After a bit, a voice behind me declared in English that she wanted to know what it was, and if it made a sound. I was surprised, as this was the first time I had been spoken to in English today, so I turned around to see a young boy, who I at first took to be much younger than he is. I asked his name and he told me it was Shrikhan.

Shrikhan is fourteen years old, well under five feet tall, and already has a smattering of grey hairs popping up all around his head. I told him his English was very good (and the more he spoke to me the more I found this to be true) and I was curious where he had learned it. Shrikhan has been attending a school in Jalna starting with pre-primary school, where they are educated in Marathi, Hindi, and most of all English. He has lived in Davalwadi his entire life, but because it is such a strenuous school he stays in a hostel in Jalna during the week.

Shrikhan has a fantastic way of speaking, both in his impressive diction and the general feeling of warmth he exudes in conversation. I was amazed at how smooth and clear his accent was, it made him sound so comfortable with the language, almost native. He told me about what school was like in Jalna, and his dream of one day becoming a doctor. He would respond to each question I asked with a huge smile, nodding his head down and away from me, in a motion of honest pleasure and modesty. It seemed like no matter how standard the question, he was always delighted to be able to provide me the answer.
Our afternoon in the village ended with a tour of Davalwadi. All of the students headed off down the narrow streets, many of them bearing cameras with which they curiously clicked away. About half of the kids from the group followed along with us, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. Davalwadi is a pretty well-off village. 700 people live in the village, yet it houses around 120 trucks, their main source of income. Most of the houses, though now all, were concrete and fairly new, and the village even had a complex system of converting waste into energy to power their homes.

The thing that really struck me about Davalwadi was how open and welcoming everyone had been. They were happy to have us there to offer our help, but more than that they were just pleased to have us there as their guests. I think Shrikhan summed it up best when I asked him about how he liked life in Davalwadi- "The whole village is a friend." As the bus headed out of town we were chased through the fields by the same group of kids that had first welcomed us into their home, as if that hospitality needed to be drawn out to the last possible moment. They yearned to show us their excitement because in that way, they were able to tell us that we would always be welcomed back.

Throughout this post you will find some more photos. The first is the original group of kids that met us, straight off the bus, along with myself there in the back. Then you have the group of students from Bombay, as well as some of the men from the village who had come to help. Next are a couple of pictures I took on our tour, as well as another picture two girls wanted me to take just before stepping on the bus. I am thinking of getting a flickr account, or something like that, so I can upload more photos. If I end up doing that I'll let everyone know in a coming post.

Kicking Off the Indian Holiday Season

I realize it has been a while since my last blog post, and while I probably could have scrounged up some time to do one earlier, the main reason for this is that my normal weekend writing time was spent traveling. We spent one day in Bombay, though mostly that was just passing through on our way to Ahmedabad, for the remainder of the long weekend. Ahmedabad is in western India, in the state of Gujrat. It is actually a really big city, not as much as Bombay in population, but very sprawling, which makes it feel more relaxed. In a lot of ways that actually made it feel slightly more western to me, since western cities do tend to be pretty spread out that way.

We went to Ahmedabad to stay with Ben's aunt for a while (Indian culture is really big on paying people visits) but the particular reason that we chose this time to go is that it was Navratri. Navratri is a 10 day celebration that leads up to Desshera, the day in honor of Ram killing Ravan. Basically it is an excuse to party for 10 days; there are huge celebrations where everyone dresses up in traditional clothes and dances for basically the entire night. And of course, I got to attend just such an event.

Ben's cousin lent me some traditional clothes to wear- a skirt, top, shawl, and lots and lots of heavy silver jewelry. The jewelery is particularly important, because the event is all about getting as dressed up as you possibly can, so you basically put on every piece of silver that you own. Plus you need the jewelry to make lots of jingling noises as you dance, probably one of my favourite things about the event in fact. Anyway, once you get all dressed up, the actual celebration begins. Technically the dancing is all part of a pooja, or worship. The particular pooja that happens during Navratri is called Garbha, and is best known for dances with dandiya, two wooden sticks that you hit together as you dance. The particular one that we went to didn't have any dandiya, but the dancing mostly followed the same patterns. The dances are made up of a lot of circles that kind of spontaneously pop up everywhere. The people in each group can do any specific steps that they like, and they tend to just cycle through a bunch of different things. As you can imagine, it is great for big groups of friends, who tend to go every night (often skipping school in the process.)

When I first got to the Garbha, it basically felt like something straight out of a Bollywood movie. Really those giant dance numbers are not as far fetched as I had originally believed, because I found myself right in the middle of the oranized chaos that is hundreds of dancing people. For the first little bit we stuck to the outsides, along with plenty of other people who just wanted to watch, or were simply resting. At the far end of the open area where the Garbha was held there was a stage with the live band; I would say there were close to twenty musicians who played nearly straight through the night, each night, for ten days. Very impressive.

After a while we started hopping in with the dancing, which was much harder than it looked. We didn't exactly have a teacher, so we just had to watch and repeat what we saw. The only problem is that the groups would move seamlessly from one type of dance to the next, so just when you are getting the hang of something, you get tossed a new set to learn. We danced for a bit, but I would say that for the most part I was happy simply watching and taking lots of pictures.

I had always known that India was a country of celebrations, but this was when I really started to understand the extent. When I first arrived the Ganesha celebration was raging, and just before that was the celebration of cows, in which all of them had their horns painted in bright colours. In a lot of ways though, Navratri signals one things- the coming of Diwali. When you look at the plethora of occasions that India celebrates, Diwali really sticks out as being one of the most important. So really all of the getting dressed up, nonstop partying, and family gatherings is just beginning.

I have included some pictures at the end of this post. The first one is of Ben and I in the traditional Garbha clothes, just before heading out. Then the next one is of the actual Garbha itself. It was nighttime and everyone was moving so it was tough to get good pictures, but it at least gives you an idea of the scope and just how dressed up everyone gets. I will upload a video or two soon as well, which I took of some of the dancers.