India: Jodhpur #5: Life In A Whirlwind (The Never-Ending Festival Days)

Now, as promised, it’s time to tell you about “The 10 Days”: our full-on festival time from April 10th to 19th when we celebrated the many cultures of India. In those few short days we celebrated a 2-day Hindu festival, a Sikh festival, a Jain festival and a special only-in-Jodhpur local festival, which was the definite highlight of them all. There was no Muslim festival around that time (they didn’t have one until last week when they celebrated Mohammed’s birthday), but it was still pretty diverse, exciting and interesting. And, by the 10th day, it was a downright blast!

It all started on April 10th with a big parade. The following day was the Hindu festival of Ram Navmi, the god Ram’s birthday, and the celebrating started the night before with a big long parade full of floats carrying actors portraying Ram and other gods as well as some other Hindu religious characters. There were also many men dressed as women. Dancers. Musical bands. And more. We were out there for hours watching the parade go by, surrounded by a tight circle of people who wanted to talk to us and ask many, many questions. We finally came back in at 12:30 AM after the parade had passed. A great night!

Anyone who’s been paying any attention to my letters up to this point might stop here and wonder “What happens to all the cows that normally crowd the streets when a big parade comes through town and the streets are suddenly packed with people?” Good question! Well, the answer is they get really scared, freak out and start charging people. And everyone runs screaming and laughing. Near us on the street that night a big cow went nuts, but no one really got injured. I’m just glad it wasn’t one of the full-sized bulls I see walking the streets every day.

The next morning the parade started again, but this one was much bigger and longer and included hundreds of floats. I went out and watched in the afternoon heat for 3 hours until it finished at 3:30. I missed the first hour, but I'm pretty sure that 3 hours was probably enough – especially during the hottest time of the day. It was a wonderful moving show with dancing, drumming, singing, blaring music, statues of gods, giant posters of gurus, lots more people (half of whom were children) dressed up as gods (Ram, Vishnu, blue-skinned Shiva, etc.) riding on tractor-pulled floats. It was mainly all about Ram though, which made sense since it was his birthday bash after all.

In the midst of all this celebrating there were also a few groups representing the ugly side of the religion. These were groups of very intense slogan-chanting VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) supporters. The VHP is the now very powerful Hindu fundamentalist group (their allies the BJP –Bharatiya Janata Party - now head the national government in New Delhi). The VHP are the guys who tore down that mosque in Ayodhya back in December 1992, which has led directly and indirectly to thousands of deaths over the past 10 years. They claimed the mosque was built over a Rama temple and that exact sight is the birthplace of Ram. Their real intentions were/are to create communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims as they see India as a Hindu country, not as the secular multi-religious nation that it’s been since Independence in 1947. These VHP people really seem to hate Muslims, who they slaughter at any given chance. Anyhow, they're very scary people, as are all fundamentalists, be they Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu.

Ignoring the intense fundamentalist guys, I had a great, though extremely hot, time watching the parade go past and watching all the people hanging from their balconies, standing on the rooftops and packing the streets. There were camels and horses in the parade and, on the fringes, more charging cows as well. There were also people throwing colored powder, just like at Holi, and I got hit with lots of red powder. I could’ve taken a million photos, there was so many fantastic sights.

I say I was watching everything, but that wasn’t always easy. Remember the “Perfect Circles” from Xinjiang last summer? Well, at this festival the Perfect Circles, like they often are in India, were packed in tight. The Xinjiang circles would usually form around us in uncrowded places, but these Jodhpur Circles were formed in a packed crowd. So, I had 5 or 6 faces only inches away from my own asking me questions and talking hour after hour after... Behind them were even more faces staring in. Luckily I’m a bit taller than most of these guys, so I could still watch the festivities over their heads. But imagine what it must be like for Son – only faces! We ended up mainly talking to one group of nice young university guys who, thankfully, asked more than the few standard questions.

Besides having to gasp for air through the Tight Jodhpur Circles I also had to constantly resist attempts to pull me into the dancing groups as they passed by. There didn’t seem to be any other tall white guys around so I guess I stood out... and everyone wanted me to join their group. But I didn’t want to. Why? Getting old and reserved? Shy? Not exactly. It was simply too bloody hot and, on top of that, once they got me it’d be hard to get away. Maybe I am getting a bit old and reserved as well. Who knows? However, I did eventually succumb when the final - and best - group came by with their drums, incredible costumes (red with gold trim) and their sticks, which they use for their amazing Rajasthani traditional folk dancing. I at first resisted, but after a few seconds I let them pull me into the circle. And then I did my best imitation of a stickless Rajasthani folk dance. I’m sure I looked ridiculous, but the crowd went wild for the only Rajasthani-dancing tall white guy in town. Son wasn’t around to see my Rajasthani moves because she had long since escaped the Intensely Tight Circles and the heat and was up relaxing in our room. So, I danced, the crowd cheered and, at least in our part of town, the festival came to an end. Great festival! Great day!

Three days later - three days in which we started to play basketball and soccer every day - it was time for another national holiday, this time the Sikh festival of Baisakhi. It was a much smaller affair, mainly confined to the Sikh temples. Of course that’s because we’re in Jodhpur where there are only a few thousand Sikhs. In Punjab, where Sikhs make up a majority of the population, I’m sure it’s a huge affair. The night before Baisakhi we were in our favorite little shop, where we buy all our fruit, veggies, water, drinks and other groceries. They’re a really friendly Muslim family and we don’t just shop there, we usually hang out talking and having a drink or two, or sometimes an ice cream. Their boy Hashim, by the way, comes out for sports with us nearly every day now. Well, on this day the owner’s friend, a Sikh man named Amolak Singh, happened to be there and I wished him a good festival/holiday the next day. We got talking and he then invited us to come to the temple the following day at noon; we, of course, said yes.

We showed up the next day at noon and spent the first hour sitting with a couple of thousand Sikhs on mats on the ground watching and listening to the prayers/singing/music. Son sat on the women’s side and I on the men’s, but I was soon surrounded not by men but, rather, by dozens of boys. I tried to watch the musicians and singers leading the prayers, but I once again found myself in a familiar Tightly-Packed Jodhpur Circle. This time it was 9 to 12 year old boys and they were sitting on my feet, leaning on my back, facing me, asking questions - many many questions - and generally just completely ignoring the prayers. It was a wonderful atmosphere sitting there outside on mats under a giant tarp, surrounded by so many brightly-colored turbans and listening (as much as possible under the circumstances) to the beautiful music.

About the band: there was one guy on the bongo-type drums, another guy on the accordion-like box and, in the middle, a man - the singer - who I swear looked exactly like Osama Bin Laden. If he really wanted a good place to hide out...

Suddenly it was time to eat. Amolak Singh had left to do some business (he returned later on), but his wife was there and she took us into the temple for a big lunch. Her name was Priti and she has a Masters degree in English Literature. She was only the second Indian woman up to that point who we’d ever really had a good conversation with and besides speaking perfect English she was also really interesting to talk with. They have 3 kids and their eldest daughter studies judo at the university every evening, so we’ve been seeing them almost ever day since. Nice family. Once again we got invited to something we hadn’t been expecting to attend at all. We seemed to be the only non-Sikhs at the temple that day and everyone was so welcoming. Yet another great experience.

The next day, April 15th, was the Mahavir Jayanti Jain Festival and, of course, Indu’s family, being Jain, was most excited about this one. It was time for yet another big hours-long parade in the scorching afternoon heat. Jainism came out of Hinduism and they worship most of the same gods, so a lot of the floats were quite similar to those we saw during the Ram Navmi Festival. In this parade they had something special though: a big group of Nazis marching with their giant swastika flags (ok, so maybe they weren’t actual Nazis). We also saw more huge camels and more groups of girls doing the traditional Rajasthani stick dance. Standing on the side watching, we received free ice cream, candies and even a brand-new plastic case for storing veggies in the fridge (??). We actually use that to keep our tomatoes and cucumbers in Indu’s fridge. You never know what you’ll get while watching a Jain parade.

Later that day we went with Manoj to visit a small Jain temple near their home. We then went to a big Hindu temple dedicated to Krishna. There were many paintings on the walls of blue Krishna. In these paintings Krishna’s killing a cow (a bad cow – not a Holy Cow - I guess), a crocodile, a demon, a buffalo and more. If you’re into killing you should definitely check this out. When George W. talks about his “personal relationship with God” perhaps he means with Blue Krishna. His kind of god!

That had been our 4th festival celebration in 6 days and, like I said, we were now playing sports every day out at the university. So, we were truly in a whirlwind of festival and sporting activity; constantly surrounded by and having fun with local people. The next night - the night following the Jain festival - we celebrated the Soccer Festival. After returning from soccer at the university we had dinner in our room and then at midnight watched the big Arsenal vs. Manchester United game live on ESPN. Now that’s a festival! But the best was yet to come when 3 days later we celebrated the Beth Mar Festival – a complete and total blast! You’ll have to wait to hear about that one though. Too big, too much and too exciting for this here letter.

Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Thursday, May 22nd, 2003