bottle rockets and dasara

It has been a crazy, crazy couple of days... I'll try to quickly recap the highlights for ya'lls.

This last week was Durga Puja - a week of prayer devoted to the Devi Goddess - and the celebration culminated on Sunday and Monday. Well actually, to be honest, I was sort of confused because there's a lot of celebrating going on. Basically there's Durga Puja and there's the Ramlila Festival (the story of the Ramayana) and they both culminated within a day of each other and with my over-stimulated brain and lack of Hindi I get confused. But here's the jist of the past two days:

On Sunday I woke up and did puja (prayer) with my Aunty and her grandchildren (Litika and Shavin). We prayed at her home temple and then 7 little girls and one boy came over (representing the seven goddesses and RAM). We fed them all puree (like chipoti but SOAKED in grease), haval (I think that's how you spell it), and chana (chickpeas, basically) and gave them all bindis, 10 rupees, and a red bracelet for auspiciousness. The children were all from a poor famliy that lives nearby and were the cutest EVER. After they left my entire extended family came over with vats of food from a local restuarant and we fed 300 local people. It seems, for Hindus, that half of the celebrations are just giving things away. It was pretty awesome.

I went to Bhangra class in the afternoon. I can't feel my thighs right now because we had class on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday our teacher forced us to do about 20 squats to hops (literally, we squated then bounced up into the Bhangra position and danced like maniacs). I am going to post a Bhangra video for you all to see. It's the best dance style ever... probably.

Anyway, this is sort of a wam-bam-thank-you-mam post... but last night was Dasara (the last day of the epic Ramayana, when Ram kills Ravana the demon). I went to Lajpat Nagar-II, the neighborhood next to mine, and watched four Ravana effigies get blown to pieces. THere were fireworks being shot off about 50 feet away from me, and these two-story high effigies full of bottle rockets, fireworks, and other explosives were set up in the square. When they blew up it was like a really contained atomic bomb; a little frightening but also amazing. I mean, really. Amazing. So much fun!!!

It's been days of festivities. We also went to a Darga this afternoon (a Sufi tomb) and watched musicians play Qawwli, Sufi "trance" music basically. It was great. We were led by a guest lecturer who I wish was our Academic Director because he was kind AND knowledgeable. Apparently those things can go together, despite what our current AD thinks....

anyway, love to you all. I'm still alive and kicking. This place is crazy in the best of ways.