Chhath Puja..

We've been back in ole Banaras for a little over two weeks now and it feels like our last days living in this city are all too quickly racing away. We've been insanely busy packing up our home and selling off most of the possessions we've amassed over the years, trying to schedule in enough time do decent goodbyes with friends (which I feel we're failing at), trying to not wear out the kids with all the running around (which I feel we're failing dismally at) - and of course, trying to manage all of the above with a family who have all had the flu since arriving back in town.. It's been an exhausting couple of weeks!

But none-the-less, I'm trying to make the most of our last days here and thus trying to get the camera out as often as possible. And whilst those who know me know that mornings are not my most favourable time of the day I decided to get my sorry butt out of bed get and down to the Ghats before sunrise last week to witness Chhath Puja. 

Chhath Puja is a an ancient Hindu festival that centers around Surya (the sun god) in which participants offer puja and gifts to thank the Sun for sustaining life and to grant their wishes. Prosperity, healing, babies and other various wishes are all considered up for grabs over this four day festival in which devotional acts such as abstaining from drinking water, offering prayers at the rising and setting of the sun and prolonged standing in bodies of water are all part of package. Whilst men and women both participate in Chhat Puja, it does seem to be more of a Women's festival and with the noticeable increase of women outside of their homes it actually creates quite a different (and wonderful) atmosphere in and around this overwhelmingly man's world which is Banaras.

I hope you'll enjoy this little morsel from the feast of colour which is the Varanasi Ghats during Chaat Puja!

(And because I can't help myself I have to point out that the compression that occured when uploading these images has done some weird things with some of the colours and really brought out the vignettes. You'll have to be patient and forgive me this time round till I work out how to fix it.)

Lolark Sasthi..

In these last months the Festival Season has kicked off here in India. I've turned up to university more than once only to find my building all chained up and a bunch of young guys laughing at the hairy foreigner who didn't know it would be closed because of Festival X, Y or Z. Just this month we've had Navratri (a 9 day festival to celebrate Hinduism's Mother goddess in her various manifestations), Durga Puja (which celebrates Hinduism's warrior goddess Durga by filling the city with hand crafted statues of her likeness, and once the rituals are completed the statues are paraded through the city to the Gunga where they're thrown into the river), Dussehra (the 10th day of Navaratri which celebrates Rama's defeat of Ravana, the demon king from Sri Lanka) and in a couple of weeks it'll be my favourite; Divali (which is meant to represent either the killing of a demon fella by a couple of Hindu gods or in other traditions when some different Hindu gods returned from their exile; I've heard conflicting stories), but in reality, it's a wonderful excuse for everyone to load up on fireworks and go to war with one another! It's terrifyingly amazing!

But these photos here are from a different festival, a local one that took place last month known as the Lolark Sasthi. It's an amazingly colourful festival that occurs right outside our old house here in Banaras. The Kund ('Well' - 'Sacred Body of Water') is an Ancient Well that was quite literally below our bedroom window and we used to get the most amazing views of the various Pujas ('rituals') that took place there as we peered straight down into it. And whilst everyday something small would take place, it was the once a year blow-out festival that would literally attracts thousands upon thousands of men and women to bath in the waters and make access to our front door a complete nightmare.

My understanding of it's meaning is that on a certain day of the year when the sun reaches a certain point in the sky it shines directly into the Kund, creating a particularly auspicious moment. By bathing in the waters on this day and offering certain fruits and vegetables to the sun god Lolark Aditya, the pilgrim hopes to attract his favour and thus fall pregnant (with a male child). I'll admit that it's that bracketed part of the last sentence which irks me the most! India's Dowry system means that often Daughters are despised as they represent to the parents a significant financial expense whilst at the same time Sons are greatly prised for they represent to the parents a new Goat, block of land or a foreign BMW when it comes time for their son to marry.

The view from our old Bedroom window

But putting that to the side, one thing is for certain; the Lolark Sasthi is a colour feast for the eyes! After taking your dip in the waters, pilgrims remove their old clothes and leave them on the steps, walking away dressed in brand new outfits. It doesn't take more than a few hours before the entire area is covered in layers upon layers of brightly coloured sopping wet Saris and the water is full of various Melons and Loki (a phallic vegetable if ever there was) which the Pilgrims will abstain from eating until they birth a Son.

Having myself gone through many years of struggling to conceive a child with my wife, my heart breaks for many of the Men and Women I see descending those steps with that look of pained hope in their eyes as they seek to win the favour of a Sun god who is largely ambivalent towards them. I do pray for them to my God; the Son of God, that in His great love for them he would open the wombs of many of these sweet women who feel the shame of not being able to bare children at all. I pray that these families would be blessed with children (boys AND girls) who they would adore, love and cherish and who would grow up to be Men and Women that would radically change this cultures perception of the worth of girls from a curse to a blessing. And in amongst all this beauty and colour, it is nice to imagine what a place this could be!

Rough Days & Silver Linens..

I'll be honest. Today was a pretty shitty day.

The electricity supply from the city yesterday was hopeless and we ended up having about a 6.5 hour power outage in the afternoon. This is pretty common for Varanasi and you do your best to get used to it and get on with life even though it's in the mid-high 30's (that's Celsius) with 75-100% humidity. We've been fortunate enough to have an inverter which means that when the city power is on it charges up our battery and then when the city shuts the power off, we have enough charge to run small items like fans and lights, whilst big ticket items like fridges and A/C's have to just sit and wait. But there is one sound which strikes fear into my heart like no other sound can. The high pitch squeal of the inverter running dry. When I hear this sound, it's the starting pistol signalling that my life is about to get infinitely more difficult. 

Often no power means no water, and not knowing how long you’ll be without power and water is a major headache. About 3 weeks ago a big transformer in our suburb blew up and we didn’t hear about this till it was too late. We ended up having to move into a hotel in a different part of town until the power could be restored 3 days later. A week prior to that our Landlord’s stabilizer which powers the water pump blew up and we were without water for 3 days. In the last 12 months, the Bundar (monkeys) which terrorise our part of the world chewed through the main power cable to our house on 3 different occasions and each time it took 24+ hours to repair. A squealing inverter signals that these wonderful things are happening.

Wild Flower and I heard it last night at about 10pm. The kids had been asleep since 7:30 but once the fan are off it's generally only about 10minutes in this sort of heat and humidity before they'll wake up in a pool of their own sweat and not go back to sleep for sometime. And sadly that's pretty much what happened. We're fortunate enough to have our Ashram just up the path from our house and the inverter there still had a decent amount of charge and so we packed up our stuff (and two very sweaty little kids) and relocated in search of a functioning fan. 

It was not until a couple of hours later that both kids finally fell asleep and lets just say the rest of the night was hard. Lots of waking up from the heat, lots of weird noises outside, lots of little people tears. 

The next morning we were all up before 6am and thankfully found that the city power was back on and charging the inverter in the Ashram. Excitedly we moved back home but were dismayed to to discover that there was no power coming to our house.. cue more little people tears.

The electricity cable to our house comes via a Kali Temple (you remember Kali, she’s the goddess in Indian Jones & the Temple Of Doom, yeah, that one!) that's on the property, then via another house, then finally to ours. None of these had power and as has happened other times in the past, yesterday something blew up in the Kali Temple yet they didn't feel compelled to do anything about fixing it.

I went and spoke with the Landlords who said they had already contacted an Electrician and that he was on his way but left that conversation not feeling convinced. Lets just say that 8 text messages, 5 phone calls, 4 increasingly aggravating visits to the landlords and 11 hours later, the Electrician arrived. Taking a total of 3 minutes he pulled out 3 fuses, cut one piece of wire then twisted it back together again, stuck the same 3 fuses back in where they came from and cha-ching, we once again had power!

We did our best to keep the kids happy throughout the day (which in this heat was hard work) and are praising God right now that the A/C in our bedroom is working as we all slip into bed, but all in all it was a pretty lousy day. I'm dreading the next time we'll have an extended stretch without power (which will happen soon enough), and I'm dreading the sleepless nights with crying kids which accompanies it, and I'm dreading the ridiculously long day trying to get our power lines repaired, so you might be wondering where the Silver Lining is in this story? And it's these.

In amongst the pain of today we were able to witness this amazing procession of gorgeous coloured Saris after gorgeous coloured Saris blowing about in the breeze from the Sari dying building that borders our property. Sure it doesn't quite make up for the accompanying sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion, but it certainly broke up an otherwise terribly lousy day with splashes of beauty and glimpses of something transcendent, and for this, I am truly grateful.