After such a sensory-overloaded weekend in Mumbai, I thought for a moment that maybe I had had enough...of the Ganpati festival at least, maybe even festivals in general. Silly me! That thought has proven to be naive, as the festival is still going full force in Hyderabad. I've completely recovered emotionally and physically and am ready to leap back into the dizzying array of colors, smells, sounds and tastes.
I hung around campus the last few days, partly because the monsoon finally decided to arrive and to go outside would be to take a shower with your clothes on, only more successful considering the low-pressure shower heads at Tagore. I was also catching up on sleep lost during our two 16 hour train rides 2 days apart. Last night, during sitar practice, we heard drums and explosions coming from right outside the hostel, so naturally we leapt up to see what the commotion was. Outside the front door was an enormous Ganesh statue on wheels, and around 30 dancing Indians throwing orange powder into the air and shouting, "ganpati bappa moriya!" Alas, we couldn't join in the celebration because we were learning a tricky song, but honestly how many times can one say they missed one ganpati festival procession because they were at sitar practice?? I got over it pretty quick. Later, in the cab on the way to the karaoke bar, we couldn't drive half a mile without seeing another ganesh idol accompanied by adoring devotees dancing around it and celebrating.
As some of you might know, Ramazan (Ramadan) also began last Sunday. It's no secret that the Muslims and Hindus of India don't always see eye to eye, so I was curious if the two overlapping holidays were the source of conflict. I asked my Islamic Culture in India teacher, and she just rolled her eyes and said, "of course, it's all very political..." She went on to describe the different ways in which the Muslims and Hindus tried to irritate each other...like playing their shrine music very loud at the exact time of the Muslim call to end the fast for the day, and conducting chaotic processions down the road during prayer time. Both sides are guilty, of course. I haven't seen or heard of any violence happening this year, and let's hope that it doesn't. Honestly.....why can't we all just get along?

Ganpati Bappa Moriya!

How can I even begin to describe the crazy weekend adventure that was Mumbai? As usual, I'm going to try to relate the colors, sounds, smells and feelings that collectively made one small weekend trip into the memory of a lifetime.

The adventure started with a 16 hour train ride from Hyderabad to Mumbai. The ride was fairly comfortable, considering the amenities: a squat toilet (just a hole straight down to the tracks), and 6 bunk beds stacked right on top of each other, with no padding, pillows, or blankets. We were woken up at around 6 am with the ceaseless cries of the chai-wallas: "chaiiii, coffeeeee, chaiiii" and "paanniiii" (water).

We got to Mumbai around 1 pm on Friday. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful--the 6 of us broke into two groups, and Cecilia and I headed for Chowpatty Beach, desperate to see the ocean. We found our way there on the suburban train, riding in the ladies only car where everyone gawked at us but were still somehow very friendly and helpful. Chowpatty beach was shocking...everyone we talked to said it was much cleaner than it had ever been, but all we saw was a blanket of plastic bags and styrofoam covering the sand, as shown below...come ON
India!! Get it together! We talked about how frustrated we were by the pollution for a while, but finally managed to relax and watch a beautiful sunset over the Indian Ocean while sipping on a bottle of Indian rose wine.

We spent Saturday morning exploring the cave carvings on Elephanta Island. They were amazing, but the experience was negatively affected by an attack staged by a local gang of monkeys, who came leaping out of the jungle, yanked a diet coke out of Cecilia's hand, and proceeded to drink it right in front of her while the rest of the monkey gang hissed in a circle around us. Terrifying!

In the afternoon, we took the suburban train to see Dobi Ghat, an enormous human-powered washing machine. It was incredible--thousands of men and women manage to wash and dry thousands and thousands of garments every day using minimal electricity. Although we felt awkward, we took a tour from a young man and actually got to get up close and personal with the dobis (washer-people):
After our "tour," we decided to wander around and see if we could find the famous "floating" mosque. We didn't get very far until we heard the sound of drums...and of course we were drawn like moths to light. What we discovered was a procession of about 20 young Indian men and little children banging on drums, dancing, throwing pink powder in the air, and carrying a veiled statue of Ganesh down the side of the road. As soon as the procession noticed us watching by the side of the road, they all eagerly motioned for us to join in. I leaped over the fence first, got smeared in the face with pink powder, and was initiated. All my friends eventually climbed over too, and we followed them about half a mile down the road, dancing and shouting and throwing powder everywhere. After we left the procession, covered in pink powder from head to toe and wearing neon orange headbands, we made instant friends with everyone in the street. They seemed to be ecstatic at our participation in their festival, and everyone shouted "ganpati bappa moriya!" (something like "long life ganesh!") and cheered as we walked by. We made the decision not to go to the mosque, because as soon as we got closer to the Muslim quarter of the city, the smiling and cheering stopped and we just felt ridiculous covered in pink...

The next day we participated in more Ganesh festival activities, thanks to Chaya, one of the CIEE students who has a lot of family in Mumbai. She took us to her family's celebration, which was held at an enormous event hall that held over a thousand people as well as a 30 foot tall Ganesh statue decked out with real gold and silver. We were invited to eat, which meant we all lined up, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and were given a banana leaf as a plate. We were served rice, daal, mango pickle, lentils, and delicious rice pudding, all without utensils. I haven't quite mastered eating with my hands yet, but all the little kids around me thought I looked pretty hilarious making an attempt. After we ate, we all stood up, and all the half-naked men who had been sacrificing coconuts all morning (I think they might have been holy men of some sort...) layed down and proceeded to roll over all the banana leaves still covered in the remnants of our meal! It was insane! I kept asking people why they were doing that, and the least confusing answer I received was something like "they were making an offering to god." We also saw people sitting on one side of a gigantic scale, while priests put their weight in rice or sugar or coconuts on the other side, so they could offer their weight to god. It was all very ritualistic...and void of pink powder, which I was happy about because my skin is still dyed pink.

If you're interested in the Ganesh festival, which just started this weekend, you should definitely look it up online. I would write more but this post is enormous already. There's so much more to say, but it will have to remain in my memory for now...there at least is a little glimpse of what a chaotic and beautiful place this is. Namaste!

Independence Day!

On Saturday, India turned 62 years old. The fun really started Thursday night, when we were all out at the club "Venom" celebrating my 21rst birthday. All of a sudden the DJ stopped the music, and men wearing "traditional" Indian garb complete with turbans came out beating on drums, parting the crowd. The shortest and strangest fashion show I've ever seen followed, with gorgeous Indians parading through the crowd of confused clubbers wearing tunics the colors of the Indian flag (saffron, white and green). The whole commotion ended before we really knew what was going on, but that's India for you. On Friday night we were also in a club, celebrating Amelia's birthday, when the DJ stopped the music at midnight to "wish India a very happy birthday!" Strangely, the Americans in the club seemed to be the only ones really excited about it---we cheered and jumped up and down and shouted, "GO INDIA!!"
The next morning, a few girls and I attended the festivities on campus. It was hard to tell what was going on, but I caught a few snippets of the chancellor's speech--something about how India is rising onto the national scene now, and they need to clean up environmentally (like Michael Jackson?), and now it's survival of the luckiest, not survival of the fittest. It was confusing. Some men in military uniforms came around and handed out ghee desserts and a spicy snack, and some school children did an adorable coordinated dance to that song from Slumdog Millionaire.
The environmental club on campus did a very entertaining skit encouraging people to use the trash cans on campus...rather depressing, if you ask me. Using a trash can is the most simple concept in environmentalism in my point of view, and that's the point that India is stuck on right now, rather than pursuing recycling and alternative energy. After the speeches were over, everyone left their snack baggies on the grass beneath their chairs. I guess they didn't get the point.
After the event, we were so inspired that we joined in on a march across campus, carrying signs in hindi and English calling for a cleaner campus. When we got to the shopping complex, we put on plastic gloves and joined the Indian students in picking up trash. It was a seemingly futile effort, because I'm fairly certain they just dump the trash cans out in the growing trash mountains I see behind buildings (which cows, goats and dogs are constantly munching on), but it felt good anyway.
Happy Birthday, India. But take my advice: USE THE BIN!!! It's a step in the right direction.

An Attempt at Cohabitation

Last Wednesday, CIEE herded us into a bus at a very early hour in the morning. We drove about 45 minutes until we reached the Henry Martyn Institute, an Indian NGO located on the outskirts of the city.
At the institute we were greeted by a very pacific young man from Indiana, and a cheery young Muslim man with an impressive beard. They spent the morning giving us several lectures on the purpose, history and current projects of the NGO. I only heard about half of the information, as I was busy becoming well acquainted with the lovely Indian-style bathroom, dealing with my latest bout of involuntary purging...but what I did hear was very inspirational:

Apparently the Henry Martyn Institute was founded in the 1930s, by Christians, for the purpose of studying and thus learning to tolerate other religions, specifically Islam. The institute now houses scholars of all ages working on various projects and degrees. They also have started a variety of new endeavors, such as schools that integrate Muslim and Hindu students, vocational skills training programs like sewing, tailoring, etc., inexpensive health clinics and free testing for a variety of ailments.















We visited one of the integrated schools, a building deep in the heart of a Muslim/Hindu mixed neighborhood. The school was almost like a dollhouse, with rooms a fraction of the size of American classrooms, and staircases so skinny most Americans would not fit through. When all 21 of us CIEE students crammed into the classroom to hear the first graders sing us a song, we were literally standing on top of each other.



















We climbed up to the terrace of the building (all Indian buildings/homes have roof access, it's very cool), where we had an impressive view of the neighborhood. The Muslim man who was showing us around pointed to the right and said "this is where the Hindus live," then he gestured to the left and said, "this is where the Muslims live..." Sure enough, in the directions he pointed there was a temple and a mosque, respectively. He went on to say that you could tell the religion of the people who lived in each home, because they put out flags to identify themselves: orange for Hindu, green for Muslim.
It's a fact that tension and violence occur frequently as a result of the intolerance between religions in India, but the people we met working and researching at the Henry Martyn Institute were fiercely optimistic and ambitious in their efforts. In a country of such fundamental contrasts, it was inspiring to see at least one success in peaceful cohabitation.