Diwali is crazy. Like India. It's a celebration of craziness. To get close to describing it, its a lot like a cross-breeding experiment between christmas and bonfire night which went wrong and produced an adorable, lovable, if ever-so-slightly-rabid mut. Diwali, in our neck of the woods, is celebrated on one day - last Wednesday 27th October to be precise. The build-up sees everbody busily running around cleaning the place up, making repairs so that everything seems extra-lovely for the main day. Diwali, popularly known as the festival of lights, is the biggest Hindu celebration in the calender. Hindus celebrate the love between Rama (incarnation of the Hindu God, Vishnu) and Sita, in a story involving a childless King, mother-in-laws, demons, exile in a dark forest, seduction, rescue and a monkey army. The build-up to the day also sees friends, neighbours and colleagues exchanging gifts - we learnt a lot about home-made Indian sweets - very sugary, very fattening, very yummy! And people packed into the shops and tailors to buy the most eye-catching saaris or pristine shirts.
On reading the guide book, which talks about people setting 'flickering candles afloat down rivers' and 'homes illuminated by twinkling fairy-lights' I anticipated a relaxing, tranquil sort of atmosphere. The reality in Tamilnadu is a war zone! Our own contributions having spent an hour debating which fireworks to get at the shop and settling for the 'hydrogn bombs' is that we nearly set our neighbour's tree on fire when it exploded in the wrong direction! The neighbours out-did our measly display with their own which would put London new years to shame. I think they started at 5.30am as revenge for the tree incident - I'm not convinced its tradition to start that early! The rest of the day continued much as it started really. Fireworks take the central role from an outsider's perspective with bangers and firecrackers being set of in every direction and from any location - including in the middle of roads and pavements. We were on our way to a meal with our Deverayaneri hosts at NEWS with the Narikuravar community. Being a poor community, a feast wa being laid on as paid for by local businessman who are doing a charitable deed (and have done for each of the last 16 years) which makes a lot of people happy, whilst earning themselves some dharma browny points (dharma, in Hinduism, is the moral code and behaviour which affects the quality of your re-birth in the next life. By fulfilling your dharma, you increase your chances of being born into a higher caste and better circumstances, and of achieving moshka: liberation and escape from the cycle of reincarnation). Anyway, having woken early and being in a mood, I gorged on a bowel of comfort-food-coco-pops which left me ill-equipped to deal with the feast. We presented our gift, box of fireworks of course, to the children who live in the community at the hostel, and watched and learned how to maximise the fun at the expense of health-and-safety. The kids really don’t have very much so it was great to be able to contribute to their happiness for the day. Notice in the photos too that they are wearing their very best for Diwali and that everyone in the community looked dapper or beautiful!
From Dev’ we caught a bus (packed, even by India’s standards, with young people on the way to the cinema) back past our home and into Trichy to visit a temple. We’d already been to Rock Fort Temple which overlooks Trichy on a 600ft hill and had been very impressed. But the temple complex of Sri Ranganathaswamy (Sri Rnga for short) was on a completely different level. I thought the gopuram (big stacked tower with carved Hindu gods) was the temple – it was awesome, in size and colour. We wandered under it, ignoring the people who sat begging beneath it, and I realised this was not the temple but the first of seven gopurams that lead you into the temple complex which feels more like a city – sort of like the Vatican in the sense of great architecture of a religious kind. We took our shoes off before entering and haggle with a guide before deciding against it. He had massive grin when we returned to him with a look that suggested he’d pin-pointed the moment we’d decided we did need him after all. He was knowledgeable, charismatic, rude, cheeky, funny and bossy. He could tell if you were switching off and would chuck an accusatory question at you about what he’d just been talking about to make sure you were listening! This meant that you had to be alert at all times but took in a lot more. He would also take your camera to take photos of his favourite bits – mainly the naked stone women carved into the exterior walls!
By the end of the tour it was nightfall and we stood watching the fireworks which were going off all around. The combination of explosive sounds, dazzling sights, and smells from the smoke, food stalls and sewers was an assault on the senses - it was mesmerising, and it felt great to have made the most of one of India's most important days.
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| The first of seven gopurams. |
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| Close up of Gods on the first gopuram. |
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| The viewpoint was a hidden treasure - on the roof of one of the temples. |
On reading the guide book, which talks about people setting 'flickering candles afloat down rivers' and 'homes illuminated by twinkling fairy-lights' I anticipated a relaxing, tranquil sort of atmosphere. The reality in Tamilnadu is a war zone! Our own contributions having spent an hour debating which fireworks to get at the shop and settling for the 'hydrogn bombs' is that we nearly set our neighbour's tree on fire when it exploded in the wrong direction! The neighbours out-did our measly display with their own which would put London new years to shame. I think they started at 5.30am as revenge for the tree incident - I'm not convinced its tradition to start that early! The rest of the day continued much as it started really. Fireworks take the central role from an outsider's perspective with bangers and firecrackers being set of in every direction and from any location - including in the middle of roads and pavements. We were on our way to a meal with our Deverayaneri hosts at NEWS with the Narikuravar community. Being a poor community, a feast wa being laid on as paid for by local businessman who are doing a charitable deed (and have done for each of the last 16 years) which makes a lot of people happy, whilst earning themselves some dharma browny points (dharma, in Hinduism, is the moral code and behaviour which affects the quality of your re-birth in the next life. By fulfilling your dharma, you increase your chances of being born into a higher caste and better circumstances, and of achieving moshka: liberation and escape from the cycle of reincarnation). Anyway, having woken early and being in a mood, I gorged on a bowel of comfort-food-coco-pops which left me ill-equipped to deal with the feast. We presented our gift, box of fireworks of course, to the children who live in the community at the hostel, and watched and learned how to maximise the fun at the expense of health-and-safety. The kids really don’t have very much so it was great to be able to contribute to their happiness for the day. Notice in the photos too that they are wearing their very best for Diwali and that everyone in the community looked dapper or beautiful!
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| The bangers have short fuses! |
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| The hustle on/off the bus - personal space is a luxury, a seat is a stroke of good fortune! |
From Dev’ we caught a bus (packed, even by India’s standards, with young people on the way to the cinema) back past our home and into Trichy to visit a temple. We’d already been to Rock Fort Temple which overlooks Trichy on a 600ft hill and had been very impressed. But the temple complex of Sri Ranganathaswamy (Sri Rnga for short) was on a completely different level. I thought the gopuram (big stacked tower with carved Hindu gods) was the temple – it was awesome, in size and colour. We wandered under it, ignoring the people who sat begging beneath it, and I realised this was not the temple but the first of seven gopurams that lead you into the temple complex which feels more like a city – sort of like the Vatican in the sense of great architecture of a religious kind. We took our shoes off before entering and haggle with a guide before deciding against it. He had massive grin when we returned to him with a look that suggested he’d pin-pointed the moment we’d decided we did need him after all. He was knowledgeable, charismatic, rude, cheeky, funny and bossy. He could tell if you were switching off and would chuck an accusatory question at you about what he’d just been talking about to make sure you were listening! This meant that you had to be alert at all times but took in a lot more. He would also take your camera to take photos of his favourite bits – mainly the naked stone women carved into the exterior walls!
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| In the olden days (I think the temple complex was built over 700 years from round 1100) sexual adventure was more acceptable in society. Today if you metion the kama sutra, people would get embarrased - I haven't mentioned it though, i'd get embarrased! |
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| These holy men are Braman - the upper class of the Hindu caste system. |
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| This is the temple elephant. We got blessed by him. To do, we handed him a rupee which he gave to his colleague and touched the top of our head with his trunk, as we were bent over! |
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| The setting sun made it all the more splendid! |
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| These are 4 of the 10 incarnations of Vishnu - to whom the temple complex was built for. |
By the end of the tour it was nightfall and we stood watching the fireworks which were going off all around. The combination of explosive sounds, dazzling sights, and smells from the smoke, food stalls and sewers was an assault on the senses - it was mesmerising, and it felt great to have made the most of one of India's most important days.
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