Religious rituals - a colleague invites me to his village

Ok, it's been a while...

Some time ago I was invited by a colleague of mine to celebrate a ritual (puja) with his family at his village of Bhora Kalan. Today I went there. Some 80km from Delhi, the drive took me through a mix of crumbling houses, brand-new developments, spotless highways and pot-holed roads.
The village itself was lovely. The people very friendly. The food very Indian!

Fried bread being prepared for our lunch at the community center

So, here is what wikipedia has to say about a puja or pooja, after which some pictures will follow, enjoy!

Pūjā or alternative transliteration Pooja, (Devanagari: पूजा) (Sanskrit: reverence, honour, adoration, or worship) is a religious ritual performed by Hindus as an offering to various deities, distinguished persons, or special guests. It is done on a variety of occasions and settings, from daily puja done in the home, to temple ceremonies and large festivals, or to begin a new venture. Puja is modeled on the idea of giving a gift or offering to a deity or important person and receiving their blessing (Ashirvad). The two main areas where puja is performed is in the home and at public temples. There are many variations in scale, offering, and ceremony. Puja is also performed on special occasions such as Durga Puja and Lakshmi Puja. The puja ritual is performed by Hindus worldwide. Various poojas are performed at various times of the day and on various occasions.

Enjoying lunch with the men!

Old houses in this village

The courtyard of the community center

The roof, where we ate the food

The women gather & gossip

My colleague Sandeep in the light clothes serving food

Entrance to the courtyard

My colleague (l) and our driver (r) walking through the village

View from the roof...

And another view...

And another...

Photo-document of visit to Agra - Taj Mahal & Red Fort

The Taj Mahal

Unidentified man at trainstation in Agra

1 out of 4 towers of the Taj Mahal

Me at the Red Fort complex in Agra

View from the Red Fort

Hold on!

Outside one of the entrance gates to the Taj Mahal

Street in Agra

Red Fort in Agra

Me again

Yet another one of the many beautiful buildings inside the Red Fort

It must be the color of the stone why they call it a Red Fort

Entrance building to the Taj Mahal

Marble area around the Taj Mahal

A Taj tower

The Taj & an Indian woman

Diwali celebrated or how I became Hindu

Lakshmi - goddes of wealth

Yesterday was Diwali, a by almost all Indians celebrated holiday - also known as the festival of lights. So many houses were lit by christmas-like colored bulbs, and lots of fireworks lit all day & night long.

My neighbour's house entrance, decorated for Diwali

In the evening we went to my employer's home to celebrate if. Before we could eat & drink we had to perform a ritual knows as Lakshmi Puja. According to tradition people would put small oil lamps outside their homes on Diwali and hope Lakshmi will come to bless them. Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped by those who wish to acquire or to preserve wealth. It is believed that Lakshmi goes only to those houses which are clean and where the people are hardworking. She does not visit the places which are unclean/dirty or where the people are lazy.

My appartment block, with decorated balconies

Outside the gate of the appartment block I live in

Entrance of a house lit with candles

As I was told when I left my flat, I should have left either the lights on or a window open, for then Lakshmi would also come and bless my home. Unfortunately, I did neither, so chances are this is going to be a bad year for me!

For this ritual we lit many candles and placed them around the house and in front of a small shrine where small statues of the goddess were placed. Then we all got a red dot on our forehead and a sort of lace tight around your right arm. All the time we were supposed to sing or chant a song, but here we had a laptop with the correct song playing during the ritual.

Fireworks!

After this ritual we sat, ate and drank and started lighting fireworks on the streets. No one lost any fingers or got burned. At least, not anyone I was with....

Me, a converted Hindu (with what's left of the red dot)

An almost Indian wedding....

You who have been following me on twitter and facebook know that I was invited to an Indian/French wedding. Last night was the reception or more formal part of the celebration, the night before it was more informal with the women singing some traditional songs. More on Punjabi wedding traditions here.

Entrance to indoor venue Thursday evening

This wedding, with the girl being French, and a not overly traditional family on the side of the groom, was a more quiet one, as I was told by the people I met. To me though, it was all very interesting, taking a look inside an Indian family, how they dress, behave, what they eat & drink (Indian food, bacardi-coke, Kingfisher beer, Zinzi wine).

Indoor celebration, with traditional Hindi song-singing by the women

The venues where the celebrations were held were really beautiful, especially last night. Out in the open, tables & chairs put on the grass, nice lighting, lots of food and drinks (the alcohol flows only till 22.30/23.00 due to strict laws, but the Indian people like in the rest of the world, keep on serving drinks from under the counter). They could have accomodated hundreds of people there easily.

Entrance to outdoor venue

Friday evening venue, out in the open

Celebrations end also rather early because of this. By midnight most people had left so the party of friends I was introduced to decided to go out. The evening before we actually ended up at some friend's place where the drinking continued. This night the club of choice was Out of the Box. A not too big, just opened and very popular restaurant/bar/nightclub. It was here that the friends and brothers & sisters of the happy couple sat and even I had to say a few words in honor of them. So there I was, a (what seemed to me) semi-invited guest, not knowing any of them, standing amidst their friends wishing them all the best. So that part of the Indian culture as I know it is true, all are very hospitable!

The party I was with, standing on the right my host

Late night/early morning leaving Out of the Box nightclub

So, next step will be a real Punjabi wedding. Can't wait!

Oh what a night.... an Indian holiday and how a party wasn't one

Last evening, after some meetings in Delhi, we went to see another performance of the ancient Dastangoi, the art of storytelling in the Urdu language. I wrote earlier about it here. Again I did not understand a word, but the setting this time was beautiful. Outside, in the Ancient Fort, a large compound of different buildings in a park-like setting near the Yamuna river, we sat in a small amphitheatre listening to what seemed to be, again, fun stories.

Look at the nice moon on the left just above the horizon

After the performance we were invited by friends to go to a party of Marie Claire, a woman's magazine on fashion and what more. A beautiful restaurant laid out in a garden, decorative lights in the trees, a wonderful buffet, good drinks, nice music, but..... no guests. We were surprised to see all but 3 tables empty, the food could serve a 100 people at least, only 25 showed up. The western representatives of Marie Claire that were invited, as our Indian host told us, must have been quite disappointed...

Where are the guests?

Ok, I did take a goodies bag home :)

It did not spoil our fun though. We talked amongst others about today's holiday, Karva Chauth, where married women (or women longing to be with a certain man) fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands. Nice :)


They also ornate their hands with henna, in the most beautiful fashion. One of our friends hands can be seen here below.

Beautiful hands

Concerning A Flower Market, A Monkey God And Urdu Theater

Yesterday was an interesting day. Went out to look for an appartment and it seems that we are finalizing soon. I saw several and now we need to hassle a bit with the owners. Expect to inform you all tomorrow.

But that is not what this story is about. Last evening we went to see a theater play in Delhi. On our way, we had to stop at a local flower market, because some offerings needed to be made tomorrow by our female companion. While she stayed in the car, we, her husband and I, went to look for some nice flowers. He regretted taking me into the market, since when the sellers say me, the prices hiked immediately. It was a funny looking market and since it had been raining quite a bit, it was very muddy as well.

The flowermarket

Near the flowermarket I saw this enormous statue of some kind of local god, there were also several temples around. Of course, I had to make a picture after which I learned from my companions about Hanuman. This Monkey God is a central figure in a story about the struggle against some demon king. He also vowed to never marry so as to protect a prince & princess his whole life. Therefor, people who decide not to marry in India but sacrifice their lives to the greater good, pray to Hanuman.
We also got to talking about why the cow is holy for so many in India, but they could not give me a satisfying answer yet, even after consulting with their parents on the phone. So we'll get back to that. The one comment the mother of my companion gave was that she "just did not like people who eat cowmeat."

Hanuman, the monkey god, between the trees

When we finally arrived at the theater, we had to rush to make it in time to our seats, but then again, even the Indian theaters do not start on time. Although I did not understand a word of what was going on, it still was quite interesting and nice and the atmosphere was real good. It turned out to be a very funny story.... (you can read one of these so-called 'folktales of Rajasthan' here).
There were 2 men on stage who told a story that has been orally told for many centuries by the Urdu-speaking people of India. Only lately all such stories have been written down by scholars and are now being put on stage. Luckily for me, I could buy some of these stories in English translation, so I will be the last to laugh!

The actors on stage were friends of my companions and they all decided to go out for drinks & dinner. They brought along a Bollywood director and some other friends. We drank wodka from a water bottle, ate braincurry, butter chicken, grilled chicken, muttoncurry, naan, roti and ended up with the sweetest (literally) dessert I have ever tasted. All in all, a very fun and inspiring evening with fun and great people, who knew how to tell stories even off stage.

Palmtrees near the restaurant we ate