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....