KABOOM!

This post would really be best with pictures, but I don't have them with me in this Internet cafe here in Orchha. I uploaded them to my laptop to free up space on my memory cards. Plus my camera died before the most explosive events, so I am waiting to get the pictures from my friend. But when I get back to Delhi, I promise to upload these pictures! Here are the events the pictures are of:

This past Monday was Durga Puja for Bengalis and Dussehra for everyone else (well, Hindus, anyway). Both end the 9-day fast of Navratri (fast during the day and eat at night, Ramadan-style). Durga Puja focuses on the goddess Durga and Dussehra celebrates the victory of Ram over Ravana representing the triumph of good over evil.

For Durga Puja, the Bengali community puts on several events in CR Park, a neighborhood full of Bengalis and where Sareeta, the other Delhi PiAer, lives. They are pretty much all the same: lots of booths with delicious Bengali food (I’m a big fan of kathi rolls), a huge Durga idol, and classical Bengali music on a big stage. I found it funny that the stage's backdrop was a sexy woman, as displayed in a picture I will post next time.

Every night of Navratri, an act of the Ramayana is performed in what is called a Ramlila. The Ramlila comes to a very fiery conclusion on Dussehra. As Ram fights Ravana, there are ridiculous amounts of fireworks that burst immediately overhead. Have you ever seen fireworks literally above your head, not in front of you? It is a little scary. They also have spinning fireworks on the ground that look like giant pinwheels of long sparks. When Ram kills Ravana, three giant effigies of Ravana and his brothers are burned. No, “burn” is the wrong word. Exploded is a better word. The effigies are stuffed with fireworks and dry straw. To set these effigies on fire and trigger their internal fireworks, a brave man touches a giant sparkler on the end of a long rod to the extremely combustible bodies and additional fireworks are shot directly at them. Once lit and bombarded by firecrackers, a ton of noisy, bright fireworks rocket out of the huge body and then KABOOM! the biggest fire I have ever seen in my life shoots up where the effigy used to be as the frame of the statue keels over and collapses. Even though I was a “safe” distance away, I could feel the intense heat of the multistory-tall flame on my face. It was terrifying and I instinctively ducked with each KABOOM!

Unfortunately my camera’s batteries died before the hair-raising spectacle, so I could not take a video as planned. But I will post pictures from a friend, I promise!

While we are on the topic of fireworks, I have been hearing firecrackers nonstop from my apartment. It’s a little disconcerting. I don’t even know what holiday it is. Unless there will be firecrackers nonstop from Dussehra until Diwali (October 17)? I really hope not, because firecrackers are LOUD.