Diwali and the Pushkar Fair

Jordan and I have been so busy procrastinating writing our final papers that we've been kinda neglecting the blog. While we haven't been doing much to write about in those past few weeks, there have been a few things worth mentioning, so I figured I'd mention them. Plus, I'm sick again, so I'm just lying around doing nothing today. I don't know why I just can't seem to go more than a couple weeks without getting sick here. Bluh. Anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, Delhi celebrated Diwali along with the rest of India. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is a huge holiday here, and interestingly enough, it has religious significance in three major religions. To the Hindus, Diwali is a celebration of Rama's return from the forest; to the Sikhs, it marks the day that the 6th of the 10 Sikh gurus was freed from prison; and to the Jains, it celebrates the day Lord Mahavira attained enlightenment. In a larger sense, though, it is a symbolic celebration of the triumph of good over evil, and the spiritual light within every person. Even though it's a religious holiday, it's sort of like Christmas in the US in that it's a national holiday and I think everyone celebrates it to some extent, even if it doesn't have particular significance to their religion. It's hard to say, though, since the vast majority of Indians are Hindus, and most people in our neighborhood are Sikhs, so Diwali is certainly celebrated with gusto around where we live.

Although only one day is officially designated as Diwali (which is based on the Hindu calendar, so the date changes every year), the celebration lasts for weeks. People decorate their houses with strings of colorful lights, light dozens of tiny oil lamps, buy gifts for friends and family, eat sweets, wear nice new clothes, and most importantly of all, set off tons of fireworks. I don't think there's any regulation of fireworks in India, so people were setting off seriously huge and impressive fireworks.

The night of Diwali itself was amazing. The fireworks, which had been going off for weeks, came to a magnificent crescendo, as people across the city all celebrated Diwali together. From our roof, we could look around and see fireworks go off every couple of seconds in every direction - it was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful things I've ever seen. Jordan and I brought our mattress up to the roof and lay there for at least an hour, watching the fireworks go off all around us. It was pretty spectacular. I wish we could have taken pictures, but our camera has been unusable since our battery charger got stolen. What a bummer!

The only downside to Diwali is that the entire city has been blanketed with thick smoke ever since. It's really gross - it makes Delhi even dirtier than it already was, plus it sets off my allergies.

The other exciting event that took place recently was the Pushkar Fair (also known as the Pushkar Camel Fair). The Pushkar Fair is a week-long event that combines Hindu festivities at Pushkar Lake (the site of the only Brahma temple in India) with a huge livestock fair, primarily for camels and to a lesser extent, horses. The end result is something like the state fair back home, complete with carnival rides and cotton candy, only about a million times more interesting and with a distinct Indian flavor.

I drove out to Pushkar, a small tourist town in the state of Rajasthan, with 3 other people from our program (Jordan decided to skip it). It took us over 10 hours to get there and almost 8 hours back, making it a kind of insane day trip, since we only ended up staying in Pushkar for about 8 hours. It was worth it though, since we ended up having a lot of fun. We saw hundreds of camels, had awkward conversations with locals in broken Hinglish, ate delicious chole from a street vendor, went on one of those swinging boat carnival rides, rode a camel, peeled raw sugarcane with our teeth and ate it, and saw a cultural exhibition featuring various Rajasthani performers. The show was pretty fun to watch, and included acts like a drummer with a drum strapped to his front, one to his back and one to his head, who was playing them with a flaming drumstick; a couple of bellydancing hijras; a very talented 10-year-old dancer; a performer dressed in an elaborately embroidered dress who balanced spinning, flaming wheels on his head; and a group of women who danced while swinging small cymbals on ropes along with the music, holding swords in their teeth and balancing vases full of flowers on their heads.

We probably won't be doing any more traveling for the next two weeks, since our final papers are due then and we haven't really started them yet. But November 17th is our last day of academic responsibility, when we will have our Hindi final and then be set free! This also happens to be the date of our two-year anniversary, so I guess being free from school is a pretty nice way to celebrate that.

After our semester is finished, we intend to spend the final 3 weeks or so of our trip traveling around India. We haven't got an itinerary planned out yet, but we are hoping to head to Darjeeling as soon as we can (to celebrate our anniversary, which we thought was fitting because we saw The Darjeeling Limited together on the day we consider the first "official" day of our relationship) and then from there, basically head clockwise around India and see how far we can get before we run out of time and have to head back home. It's hard to believe we're so close to the end of our trip now - I still feel like I have so much to do. I think by the time our trip ends, though, I'll be ready to go; India is amazing and I have come to feel pretty at home here, but it can also be exhausting, and it will be kind of nice to get back to life as usual.