Diwali

Today Diwali (the festival of lights) finally arrived. This is one of the biggest festivals in India. It is celebrated at home with family and LOTS of fireworks.
All of the museums are closed, and many of the stores.

We decided to go to Old Delhi. The Delhi of the Mughal Emperors, is now an amazingly congested area of winding streets and tiny stores and stalls. We had previously been to Chandni Chowk (the main commercial area) but did not have a chance to really explore it. The area is so congested, that it’s very easy to get lost. Most tourists rent a rickshaw and sit back and enjoy the ride. You never get off the rickshaw so you never get a chance to go in the stores or mingle with the people. It does guarantee that you will get back to where you started however.

We had purchased an Indian Cell Phone, and figured we could just walk into Chandni Chawk and call our driver when we were done. As soon as we started to walk, several people came up to us and were offering to guide us through the maze. We refused all, and continued to walk. A young Indian man with a crutch, (he was missing a leg) pointed us in the direction we wanted to go, and helped us cross the street. He became our guide, and we were all the luckier for it. He never asked to be a guide, never quoted a price, he just led us through the maze of streets, understood what we were looking for and took us to some interesting vendors.

It was hard for us to keep up with this one legged man and he practically sprinted ahead of us with his one crutch and good leg. He spoke perfect English and was always watching out for us. We spent many hours as we navigated the Muslim area of Delhi. We eventually took a rickshaw ride back towards the general direction we had entered the maze. Everywhere they were selling fireworks for the big night. When we finally were finished, I called our driver and Abdullah, our guide, explained to our driver where we were and we were promptly picked up. He never asked us for money, but we tipped him enough that I am sure that this was his happiest Diwali ever!

We then drove from the congested, old Delhi to Kahn Market. Many of the stores had closed for Diwali, so walked around for awhile and then had a late lunch. We returned to the hotel and got dressed for our Diwali night.

We were driven by our driver to a suburb of Delhi named Gurgaon. It is called Little Singapore. It could be anywhere in the world. It was generic high-rises being built everywhere. There was building after building of very flashy architecture, without at hint of India. There used to be a rural village, but now modern high rise buildings occupy most of the old farmland. Delhi is out of room and India is growing.

We were driven to a part of Gurgaon that had survived - tree line streets with typical Indian multistory multi-generational houses. This being Diwali and India the homes were decorated with lots of lights. We had been invited to celebrate Diwali with our tour operator’s family. The house had a large living room with a marble floor. In the middle of the floor a complex alter had been laid out with pictures of Ganesha (the Elephant Headed God – remover of obstacles), and Lakshmi (the Goddess of wealth). Surrounding them were all kinds of flowers, bananas, coconuts, vessels of water and unlit candles. A young priest was also in attendance..

The bad news is they don’t serve wine; the good news is they do serve Scotch. So we sat around met the members of family drank the scotch and talked. It was then time for some serious puja (prayer ceremony).

I was selected to do the offerings. The Priest chanted away in ancient Sanskrit and I was directed to light candles, shake water, throw rice, throw flowers, decorate statues, etc. I did my best to make these offerings at the appropriate god, goddess, coconut or fire at the appropriate time. The ceremony went on for what must have been nearly 20 minutes. I had never thrown offerings for that long before and one time one of my flower pitch landed on a candle and extinguished it. All of a sudden I worried I had offended the goddess of wealth and the stock market was going to drop 500 points. We relit the candle and hopefully Lakshmi’s attention was elsewhere and the stock market will continue its drive.

After all of the ceremonies we went outside and lit fireworks and sparkers in the street. The whole neighborhood (in fact all of India) was ablaze with fireworks this night. The sound of the explosions of fireworks surrounded us. We then had dinner with the family. They both cooked food and brought in food. After dinner we were driven back to our hotel. The whole drive into Delhi the sky was constantly illuminated by fireworks from seemingly every household. We completed our packing in preparation for our departure tomorrow to the state of Orissa.


Click the YouTube above to see Cathy light up the night!