This past Sunday was the 10th day of the Ganesh immersions, and almost considered the biggest day of the festival. So that night, Cordelia, Joshua (Denzil Fonseca's children) and I drove down to the water to see the Ganesh idols being immersed. Where we went didn't have the huge Ganesh idols being immersed, but it had some smaller household Ganeshes. Still, I was able to see a procession of a medium sized (3 feet or so) Ganesh going to the water. The cart that the Ganesh was in was covered with flowers and surrounded by people dancing, playing the drums and just celebrating. I tried getting some pictures but it was hard to do in the dark.
Even though I haven't really been sightseeing, it's nice that I'm able to take the time to get used to living in Mumbai and "be a local"--even though as much as I try, I'll never be one. I've realized that I don't have to travel far in order to experience life in India. There are constantly festivals, fairs, parades and other events happening in the area.
After coming back from dinner with Cordelia and Joshua, I heard that there were bombings in Delhi, India's capital. Although we're far from Delhi (about 875 miles), it's still quite scary. The terrorism group that claimed responsibility for the bombings emailed the government saying that Mumbai is next. It's so scary living in fear that the place where you're living might be bombed at any time. Although since I've heard that news, it almost seems that most people haven't reacted to it. It's almost that they're so used to this type of threat that it's become common. Scary!!!
Here's a link to a news article about the bombings:
http://www.euronews.net/en/article/13/09/2008/new-delhi-bombings-claim-many-lives/
This whole week, the Bandra fair/festival is also going on. Bandra is a section of Mumbai, which is weird because my internship is in Andheri, another section of Mumbai, yet it's an hour away from Bandra, which is still in Mumbai. I probably just lost you guys, sorry about that one, but I just can't believe that I can travel an hour away and still be in the same city. Anywho, so Wednesday night, Joshua invited me to go see the fair. The Bandra fair is put on by one of the beautiful old Catholic churches in the area, Mount St. Mary's church. Even though I haven't seen a reaction to the students about the Delhi bombings and Mumbai bomb threat, the police are definitely reacting to it. Before we got to the fair, we had to go through metal detectors and have our bags searched. I had brought my camera, thinking that I could take pictures, but when they searched my bag, they told me that I had to give them my camera batteries and that I would get them back later.....just another reaction to the bomb threat. They even told everyone to leave their cell phones off while in the festival, because the Delhi bombings were triggered by a cell phone...go figure!
After going through all the security, we walked around, saw all the Indian sweets from all over India (different parts of India have different cuisines...ex. cuisine from Goa is from the influence of the Portuguese and has a lot of Portuguese spices), vendors selling candles, trinkets, jewelry etc. There are so many different kinds of snacks and sweets just in Mumbai, never mind the rest of India. Since being in India, my favorites have been Gulab jamun (a fried doughball immersed in honey)and lassi (a sweet yogurt drink). Yum yum!
Going back to the candle vendors, I have to mention something about them. You won't find your ordinary candles here. If someone is sick or hurt, they will buy the candle shaped as that body part that is hurt and then light it as a candle. The belief is that by lighting the foot shaped candle, for example, you are relieving you foot from the pain.
The fair though was similar to any bazaar and roadside festival--children's rides, toys and fair food. I guess a fair is a fair anywhere in the world that you go. I wish I could've taken some pictures of all the food stands and vendors, but unfortunately my camera won't work without batteries :(
1 comment:
So glad you're safe! It's so scary to be in a country where there are regular bombings. I don't think I ever got used to it in Israel. But you do learn to adapt a bit. It helped that I was with locals who could tell me what was going on when there were searches and bomb squads.
The fair sounds like a fun outing! Who would have guessed that fairs over there were so much like the ones here. I'll be heading to our local country fair this weekend and will be thinking about your Mumbai fair while I'm there. =)
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