may the festivals begin

being in india at this time of year, i'm told, is a very good thing. i’m experiencing the rainy season for the first time in my life, which i will probably write more about later. also, i will experience the festival season. there are many festivals that are celebrated here, all year long, but the end of august into september to october, which would be autumn at home, is when all the biggest and most exciting festivals happen. for the first time i'll be here to witness them.

it started yesterday with janmashtami, the birth day of krishna. there is a very interesting tradition that happens here on this day each year - the dahi handi. that is a clay pot filled with dahi (yogurt/curd), decorated and strung up on a rope. the height of this rope varies; in some places its just a few stories high, but i've heard in other places, such is in mumbai proper, it's strung between buildings, reaching seven or eight stories high. teams of people (who have practiced all year for this) create human pyramids so that someone can reach the top and break the handi. the motivation is a cash prize to the team that succeeds, which can be quite a lot of money depending on the location and how high the handi is.

my aunt-in-law told me that when my husband was a child, his dad and the other parents in the neighborhood used to put up a much lower handi, so that all the kids in the area could climb on top of each other to break it. satyajit remembers that time fondly – we fell and got bruised, he said, but it was great fun. that story reminded me of halloween and the crowds of kids that used to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

i also wondered what happens if no one can reach the pot – well apparently as the day goes by it gets lowered a bit, so that finally someone can break it before midnight.

yesterday i saw a lot of these teams here in navi mumbai. they were crowds of guys in matching t-shirts riding buses to get to the places where the handis were strung up. apparently there are teams of girls as well, although they are rarer. i saw a few teams earlier in the day that made the attempt but did not reach. one team could not even get their top guy up, they all kept slipping and so gave up. but finally in the night we went out again to watch and at last a i saw a team reach the top and succeed.

crowds of people gather to watch these attempts, there’s music and dancing, and a guy with a hose sprays water on each team after they try. i’ve heard that actually they are supposed to pour water on them while they climb up, to make it harder. and since this is the rainy season, it could have been even more slippery if it actually been raining yesterday. lucky for them, it wasn’t.
overall it was a wonderful thing to watch although i did worry a bit too. i didn’t see anyone get hurt myself but i’m sure there are lots of bruises and minor injuries that happen on this day each year. but as i said these teams do practice and it’s a lot of fun watching them climb up. you do have to wait around if you want to see a team try, because they climb up very quickly, and climb back down even faster. the whole thing happens in just a few minutes. i missed most of the ones that happened yesterday in our area, but i’ve put up the pictures of the team i managed to catch last night that actually did climb up and break the handi.