Bonalu

We went to our first festival today. How can words even describe what can truly only be experienced with all physical and mental senses? But of course I'm going to try:
We left at 8:30 am on a Sunday. I was in a sort of mute reverie the entire time, partly because I literally lost my voice due to sickness and the previous evening's late night festivities, but mostly because the whole scene was so awesome and unlike anything I have ever experienced, that talking would ruin it.
The festival is called 'Bonalu,' and apparently only takes place at this time, in this form in Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Side note: the thing I love about festivals here is that none of them are ever scheduled, they just happen "around July and August." Meaning there is just some kind of communal consensus as to when the party starts, and then it happens. There's no calendar. The main point of this particular festival, as I gathered it, is to worship the 'Holy Mother' goddess, who manifests herself in many different forms, Durga and Saraswathi being two of them. Durga is known for her ferocious anger (she's the goddess with all the arms), which is often thought to be the cause of human plights such as epidemics, drought, famine, etc.
Offerings are made to the goddess in the form of a yogurt & onion mixture (foods thought to cool anger), and Pongali, a dish made from milk, rice and molasses. The Pongali is carried in brass pots on top of women's heads in procession lines, led by a man beating a drum and singing. The pots were smeared with vermilion and tumeric, making an extraordinarly bright display. Apparently animal sacrifices are made as well. They used to make sacrifices of water buffalo, but now for whatever reason they just do roosters and goats. We saw an awful lot of brightly colored goats being led around by their masters, but we didn't see any being sacrificed (thank god).
We left our bus in front of the temple entrance, with our shoes inside, as instructed. I was fully sketched out by the prospect of walking around barefoot on top of every tropical disease, bacteria and parasite known to man, but of course I went along with everyone else and left my shoes. We entered the temple after waiting in a line of anxious Hindus eager to see their goddess. Inside the temple, there were several hot, humid rooms, the greatest and most crowded one containing the life-size figure of Durga, the ferocious, many-armed goddess. We were told to look at her from the feet first, then move your eyes all the way up to her head. There was a man waving around some sort of ceremonial fire, which people were "gathering" with their hands and then wiping their faces. It was so crowded and sweaty that I could hardly tell what was going on, but somehow in the serene chaos somebody marked my forehead with bright red vermilion and tied a strand of jasmine flowers in my hair and put red and green glass bangles on my wrist...
We then moved out of that room and into another room with mirrors on all the walls and some kind of holy chair in the center. Then we went into another room with more figures and images of the goddess, where people tied coconuts and bangles wrapped in red cloth if they had a prayer they wanted to come true. There was a lot more going on, but it's very difficult to explain. I'll try to put a few pictures up to speak a thousand words for me.
To say the least, it was an awesome experience. I wish I could explain more of the symbolism, but honestly I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated that I'm still sifting through all the images in my head, trying to make sense of them. And of course, everyone gawked at us like we had as many arms as Durga....

Over the past few days we've been working on picking out our classes and organizing our schedules...let me just say that I think the academic process here is an excellent indicator of the general Indian culture and attitude I've encountered so far.
For starters, the SIP (Study in India Program) organizers have been emphasizing the fact that NOTHING is set in stone on the class schedule, and until the 2nd or 3rd week of classes, certain classes are liable to change times or disappear completely, so we are not to get our heart set on anything. To complicate things even more, Indians seem to love the time period of 11am-1pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, so every single class in my department is scheduled at that time...a fact that makes it rather difficult to take more than one class from a single department. Also there is this thing called the "shopping period" at Hyderabad U, when students are encouraged to go to any classes they are interested in for the first week or two, until they decide which classes to attend always. All these factors combined sort of stressed all us Americans who are apparently way more obsessed with organizing and setting things in stone than we realized. After freaking out in a pool of my own sweat for a few minutes, I forced myself to take a few breaths and accept that things will all work themselves out on their own.
For the past week or so, our group of 21 students has been shuffled around in an air-conditioned bus to do touristy things in the city. As much as I hate being herded around from place to place, it's been really nice to "get a feel" for the city (as my mom would say), and to get some background info on Hyderabad. A couple days ago we went to a mosque in the Old City, which is apparently one of the biggest in the world. Women weren't allowed to go inside, and especially not non-muslim ones, but we did get to cover our heads and walk around barefoot in the pigeon poop-soaked courtyard. We also went to this enormous palace where the nizams and sultans lived with their families. When we came to the end of the tour, we were all expecting to get back on our bus and head back to the hostel for lunch, but instead they led us into one of the rooms in the palace, with an enormous table piled high with food!! None of us could believe that we were actually eating a meal inside the palace. It was the first real meal I could stomach after a few days too, so I was especially happy.
After dining in the palace, we were shuffled over to the Golconda Fort, which was the seat of power for the nizams before it was taken over in the 1500s...there was some kind of Hindu festival going on inside the fort, which I thought was semi-ironic since it was historically a muslim fort, but it was really cool to see. I made a small offering at a Hindu temple, and received my first red dot on my forehead! The man poured this strange water into my hands, which I promptly rubbed all over my hands because I had no idea what else to do. This woman just stared at me, then rolled her eyes and said, "no, you're supposed to drink it!" Apparently I'm not well on my way to becoming a Hindu.
Alright, enough for now. The mission of the day is to find an Italian restaurant--don't get me wrong, I LOVE Indian food, but nothing could prepare me for the intensity in my gut from eating it every single day. Namaste!

The Beginning

First of all, a word about the title of this blog. On our second day here, one of the program directors informed us that Indians use the word "sultry" to describe the humidity here--the constant, oppressive force that drenches us in sweat before 10 in the morning. I thought the word described what I've seen of India thus far, so it became the name of my first blog.
I've been here in Hyderabad for less than a week--about 5 days--and I'm already recovering from my first bout of food sickness. I'll spare you the details but let's just say that riding on buses through the streets of Hyderabad does not a calm stomach make. Everyone seemed very concerned about me though, and our bus driver even drove to get me some rehydration powder. I'm feeling much better now, but let's just say that Indian food, as wonderful as it is, was not what I wanted to see first thing in the morning after puking all night.
That said, India has been wonderful so far. My first impressions are that it is extremely hot, flat and crowded, yet delicious and titillating all at the same time. We've only gone out of the campus a few times, but every time I've been completely blown away. Everything that everyone told me thus far is true, but there is nothing compared to experiencing it myself.
The most striking thing about India is the contrasts. There are literally fancy apartment complexes and shopping malls with security guards right next to mini slums made of tarp tents with entire families living inside. Even though the poverty immense and even suffocating, the most dejected people find ways to make their lives beautiful, tying jasmine flowers into their hair, marking their foreheads with bindis, and wearing the most brightly colored, silky saris you can imagine.
I've been here for less than a week, but I'm already impressed, disgusted and entirely overwhelmed by that which is INDIA. Now we're going to attempt to find a craft market in the city, and then off to buying saris and salwar-kameezes, so I will have to write more later. Namaste!