DIWALI - biggest Hindu-festival

Last day at work with my colleagues

(l.to r.: Mauschi, the servant;Mr. Kamble, Outreach worker (ORW); Mr. Abte ,Doc;AMit, ORW; Mr. Auwre, Counsellor; ME in traditional dress; Rekha, Counsellor & Sheetal, ORW)

Today I will write only a short txt, because later I will leave for a trip and I still have some things to do before that.
This last days it has been the hindu-festival DIWALI. This is the most important hindu-festival and can in some ways be compared to our christmas. The streetlive has been even busier the last days, people have been purchasing a lot, besides traditional things also gifts for the family. Women get new sarees, children get anclets (dt Fussbaendchen), new dresses, jewellery, men get new outfits. The houses are decorated with lot of lights. Diwali is acutally often called ´festival of lights´. They have traditional ways of putting candles, so-called dias. Oil and cotton is put in clay-bowls (dt Ton-Schaelchen) and lit. We also have them on our balcony. It looks really pretty! The entrances of the houses are decorates with rangolis, and candles are placed at the doorsill (dt Türschwelle).

Making the Rangoli at the hospital

The candles and lights are so important because they are supposed to show the good god Ram the way to the houses.The women also make a lot of sweets at home and distribute them to friends, family and neihgbours. And at night a lot (!) of crackers are burst and there are fireworks all over town. Imagine how that looks like from our 11-floor-high-rooftop......!
I bet you want to know more about the festival. The short version is, that they celebrate the defeat of the evil by the good. On the different days of this 5-day-long festival different gods are worshipped. On the 2nd day, for example, Krishnas victory over the tyrant Narakasura is celebrated. Saturday is the most important day, the Lakshmi pooja. This is also the day when the presents are exchanged and the whole family does the pooja togehter (traditional worshipping of a god with candle, sweets,...) and they have dinner. On the last day, men get tikka´s (small dot on the forehead) from their sisters- this is comparable to Raksha Bandhan which was celebrated in august.

Varsha, Prajakhta, me and Rekha at Rehka's parents

For me this has been the loveliest festival and it it so interesting to see it happen. The whole town is busy and everybody wishes each other all the best. I was invited to some Indian AIESEC people where we burst some crackers (I didn´t) and ate some of the typical food. Yesterday I was at Rekha´s house (my colleague from work). It was sooooo nice. My other colleague Varsha and her 3-yr-old daughter Prajaktha came along also. We were with the whole family. It was the first time I saw her house and family and they were all very cute... which meant that I had to eat a lot (and I mean A LOT) of homemade sweets and drink lots of tea. I brought some sweets and a book on the Netherlands with great photo´s in it for Rekha as a present and I got bangles (dt Armreifen) from her. I really like them! It was a very very good day!

In front of Rheka's house during Diwali

Let the good win from the evil and
Happy Diwali to all of you!

Yours
ANke

Ps: I´ll be going to Goa with Trude (Noorway) and ´Tattoo´ (Sudan) this evening. We´ll go to Palolem which is supposed to be the ´post-card´-beach of Goa. Not sure yet when we´ll come back. I´ll make some nice pixx..... ;-)