Happy Diwali

Wow. So the past three nights whenever I look out the window I feel like I’m getting the privilege of a personal fireworks show. No joke. As soon as the sun goes down, the sky comes alive with fireworks galore. I went back and forth on my Diwali plans and in the end just decided to relax in Lucknow. The bazaars were bustling with people buying diyas/clothes/kitchenware/sweets and the lights were glam. I bought my first clay diyas and lit them the night before Diwali. On the day of I went over to a friend’s house for a mini Diwali party. So much fun! We had a pooja and then proceeded to the terrace to light the entire railing with candles. The most exciting part was next when we lit (I watched) fireworks on terrace…and practically every terrace in the neighborhood was doing the same. So loud. So colorful. So India.

PS. some photo courtesy of my lovely friend Devon (the glam girl in the sari)!!

Deva Sharif

Today I went with Briana and Anand to Deva Sharif on the last day of Urs – it made for a crazy fun day trip. The place was exploding with people and food and knick knacks. What an eclectic assortment of goods…everything from camels to 3 feet wide parathas to ittar to magic tricks to funky hats (all) for sale. We ambled along the curved bazaar and stopped from stall to stall to feast our eyes out. When we got to the dargah (which was decked out in lights btw) we paid our respects and then chilled outside for a bit where we listened to some qawwalis. So my hopes are that by April I’ll be able to understand these qawwalis….my Urdu is slowly getting there  Poetry in any language is hard, eh?

Nepal

For our extra long midterm/Eid/Dusshera chutti, my friend Briana and I went to Nepal for 10 days. The Nepalganj border is only 5 hours from Lucknow. Our journey got off to a strange start…so our bus stops and we catch a cycle rickshaw to the visa office (or so we though) and we are going along in the heat until we realize that it’s been 40 some odd minutes and we are no longer sure what country we were in. There were no clear signs of note that would indicate the country change and people were freely moving in two directions…so we ask a passerby and find out we are in Nepal and have been for the last 30 minutes….great….so we turn around to the visa office, but because we missed the India office and failed to get an exit stamp the visa vaala sent us back to India. Finally, with exit stamps, we returned to Nepalganj – only to be held up for a day because we had no US dollars! And but of course the visa vaala office only accepts US dollars…fine, so long as there are money exchangers…but alas, there were none and we were in for a fun adventure where we had to make quick connections and find US dollars. Not even the banks would give us US dollars…at least we are American…if I had been of another nationality and had to face this mess…I would have been much more irritated by American imperialism. Sure enough, we learned our lesson. Turns out seasoned travelers always carry US dollars…at least the visa vaala let us spend the night visaless in Nepal and didn’t send us to India again. This whole shenanigan got me thinking about the arbitrary nature of borders…I mean seriously, we were unclear which country we were in for 45 minutes. Both sides of the “border” were the same (superficially at least). We kept our eye out for some huge “welcome to Nepal”sign…but we are still looking for that one. Okay so there was this decorative gate at one point but there’s no dearth of those in South Asia and this one had no indication of a special crossing like a COUNTRY BORDER! So there we go….these country borders at a practical/executed level seem to have little significance (I’m overlooking borders that are matters of contention). Yet still territory at the mass/macro level is such a huge deal…how does one really sit down and draw clear lines on a map….the process seems so random/arbitrary/semantic. A process that those who care to can take major advantage of and use a means to exploit/exercise power. When the parties involved are having their maps/borders drawn by an “uninvolved” party.
We decided to fly from Kathmandu on the way back to save time…I was determined to get the Indian fare and not the exorbitant foreigner fare. Honestly, I probably could have even done without a visa …as no one even checked my visa all 10 days (sans the evil visa officer). So the travel agent was quite a character…he claimed that he could not give me the Indian fare…but we all know that is not true. So I insisted…and he consulted with his boss and decided that I would have to change my name because “Raheja” is Pakistani. Would you believe that? I’ve never heard that before…but technically I guess it kind of is a Pakistani name? Anyhow, he wanted me to make a fake id and all…which we both found hilarious. I assured him that I could pass for an Indian…and he finally conceded. Ironically there was absolutely no security at the airport! Not like the tickets look different anyhow.
Anyhow, on to the 15 hour bus ride to Pokhara. After having only budget traveled for the past 4.5 months, I’ve all ready changed my conceptions of what a “long car/bus ride” is. The Austin to Dallas 3 hour drive used to be pushing it. Now, I’m fine with and even expect double digit numbers. It’s not that I value my time less, it’s just that I am not falsely obsessive about my time and know that thinking/chilling/moving from point a to b is justifiably quite productive. Not to mention – overnight bus/train rides are such a perfect utilization of time…I love getting on a train in Lucknow, falling asleep, and waking up in Bodhgaya. From Pokhara we took an awesome 4 day trek/rafting trip. First time to do both and I loved it – trekking is def. more my thing. I don’t care much for cold water and getting beat up by rocks. Get this…instead of bussing all the way to Kathmandu from Pokhara, we arranged our rafting trip so that we could raft halfway to Kathmandu instead! In the mornings when the sky was clear – we got to check out some awesome Himalayan views. Nothing beats the flight back from Kathmandu where I could clearly see huge chunks of the Himalayan range though.
We ended our trip in Kathmandu. Minus the hyper tourist factor, the city was a lot of fun and extremely festive as we happened to be there for Nepal’s largest festival – Dashai. This utsav celebrates the victory of Durga/Kali over Mahisasura and animal sacrifices galore are made to both deities. The idols are even bathed in blood. It’s so fascinating to me to see the cultural appropriation of any one given religion (in this case Hinduism). The other neat thing we saw in Nepal was the confluence of Buddhist and Hindu traditions. It’s experiences like these make me think that using one unified term of Hinduism to refer to a pluralistic set of traditions/belief systems simply based on geographic proximity to be quite problematic. One could perhaps argue that this is an accepted essence of the notion of religion (it’s malleability). Who knows. I just think it’s okay to be different…no need to try to smooth over the differences and try to get all to adhere to one label and learn to conceptualize themselves under this label.

Namaskar from Varanasi

“Ayodhya mathura maya kashi kashi avantika…” As a child I memorized a wide abundance of Sanskrit shlokas – this one appreciating the holy Indian cities being one of them. I didn’t actually bathe in the Ganga but I still hope my mere visit to Kashi canceled out some of the paap I have accrued J Okay sarcasm aside, this place is holy. Take an hour morning walk on the ghats and feast your eyes on pooja after pooja after pooja. I arrived early Friday morning and went straight to the south most Assi ghat to begin a Ganga boat ride. It was super relaxing and served as a nice introduction to Varanasi. I got off at one of the burning ghats and walked most of the way back to Assi where I met my friend Jolie. She’s lived there for a year+ so she knows all the ins and outs of the Benaras. She first took me to the Nagari prachari sabha (where she looks at archives) – this organization was part of the big push for the nagari movement so critical to Hindu nationalists. I walked around for a bit after that and had to take a lot of detours as many roads were closed for Jummat al vida. I got to see namaaz overflowing out of the masjids and into the streets which was a rather neat sight. There’s something quite powerful about unison. I visited several of the mandirs including the famous Vishwanath mandir which was quite fun as all the access/exit points are through convoluted gullies. The lassis are also damn good in Varanasi.

In the evening I went to check out aarti at Dashashvamedh ghat. It was extremely touristy and the whole thing seemed like a rehearsed performance really. Between the mechanical spectacle and camera flashes, the emotion was completely missing. I played my role and let a diya out into the river. For dinner Jolie and I went to this obviously exclusive joint for foreigners. Btw there are so many foreigners in Benaras that there are classes and different joints are frequented by different classes. There are the hippie backpackers who stop by for a week, the studious researchers/artists/etc who stay for longer, the permanent ex-pats, etc. etc. Assi is like a modern mini village of foreigners. I’m so glad I got to hang out with Govinda baba – a Canadian gentleman who threw his passport in the Ganges thirty years ago and never looked back. There are several of these character types who claim a spiritual “Hindu” authenticity with the following elements (give or take a few) a)Hindufy their name b) keep extreme hair (ladies – short and gentlemen – unruly) and c) and wear orange. Power to them I suppose.

We spent the next day in the inner folds of Benaras – the tiny, intricate gullies – each so unique. On our way to the manikarnika ghat we passed a gung ho Bhagat Singh inspired communist rally. Speaking of, I’m really trying to work on getting rid of my American democratic notions of communism. Onwards to the cremation grounds. I really cannot go into detail here. The experience was extremely moving. We watched from start to about 30 minutes in. I slowly watched fire melt away at a corpse and this sight/the environment was immensely thought provoking for me. Life is queer.