Festivals

In this chapter I will talk about the different religious festivals that I managed to visit during my stay in India. Just a remark, the Hindu calender refers to the moon and not to the sun, that's why the exact dates of festivals change every year.


October 2011 started with the Durga Puja, which lasts for ten days and is a very important festival in Bengal. The final four days are the most interesting, because during this time it is thought that the mother goddess descends to earth and returns at the tenth day.
Unfortunately, I did not have the time to visit Kolkatta during that period, because I have heard that the city transforms during these last four days totally, and that it is a great event when the statues of the Goddess are given to the river. Anyhow, fortunately there is a big community of Bengali in Bangalore who organized a special venue for the Durga Puja at the Palace grounds. I went there together with some lab mates on the 8th day of the puja.
By chance, we first entered a place of the Birhan Durga Puja, where the shrine was made of a row of five different gods, all in quite light colors. In the center was the Mother Goddess, killing a bad demon. We entered the line of people to pass by the Goddess: first, there was a priest and an assistant who distributed some flower blossoms, and people could leave some money in a small bowl. Then we marched along the god statues and several gifts were laid out to them (some coconut and flowers), at the end of the line were another two priests, one puts a red dot on your forehead, the other gives a small sweet ball (laddu, very tasty). The distribution of sweets or food after the visit of a temple is common in India, people told me that some temples are very famous for their sweets, which are not available elsewhere!



After this start, we went to the next area where the Bengali Durga Puja was. Entering the hall, I understood that my colleagues went for only one thing - the food! There was a nice idol and shrine set up in the main hall, which I managed to see more detailed the following day, but the most space was taken by vendors of different things (clothes, gifts, spices or furniture) and food stalls. The food court was the most busy one, and the dishes looked all very tasteful. Especially we tried the typical Bengali dishes like some fish and prawns. It was interesting to see, how this religious festival turns to a occasion for people to go out and meet people. When we left the ground at 9pm, the influx of people increased enormously and I was told that the place is open until 1.30 am (i.e. the Bangalore law makes an exception for those pujas).

The following day a friend from NCBS suggested me to accompany her to the Navratri (means nine nights) festival which also took place at the palace grounds. This festival has its origins in Gujarat and Rajastan (north-eastern India) and is another puja to honor the mother goddess Shakti. A special feature during this festival is the performance of two traditional dances, the garba, a circular dance, and the dandia-ras, a stick dance. Actually, we went to a kind of dance competitions where many participants wore beautiful colorful dresses and competed in dancing skill and duration: one session for the kids (5-14 years) lasted for about 40 min with increasing music speed in the last 10 min. Besides that, there was a big live band, and everyone could dance in between the competitions (kids, adults, in both dances). It was a great fun to dance some rounds of garba, and to see so many nice dressed people of all generations. We left at 12.30 am, but I was told that the dance would go on until 4 am!

Diwali 2011 was on October 26, and it is THE Indian festival (according to my Indian colleagues). This festival of light is celebrated all over India, it is even the beginning of the new year in Gujarat. The central part of this festival is to burn crackers and firework, which means that you fell like in a war zone starting from two days before and after Diwali which means that you can hear some bomb blasts all the time from somewhere and that you should watch out for sparking crackers when you are walking on the street (especially when it turns night). The day itself, the people gather wiht friends or their families wearing new clothes (normally Sarees or Kurthas), have some food together and burn crackers like crazy (the days before were just a warm up). At my place, the Mandara hostel, the people of NCBS organized a party, where we first played some social games (also common on diwali), had food, nice fireworks and music to dance! the place was nicely decorated with colorful ornaments on the floor and a table for the god Shiva with flowers, candles and fruits. Then we had some Indian food and sweets, and went out for the fireworks (it was a lot). The best was the music after the fireworks, and we danced for a couple of hours to bollywood music. that was a new experience for me, and I liked a lot the mix of indian dance moves and jazz steps. Men and women were eagaly danciong, but not too much together, more in circles. It was pure fun, and I hope to find more such occasions in future. It is a pitty that dancing is normally not allowed in bars and clubs in Bangalore.