Festivals - Haji Dandi

Last night at midnight was the birth of Lord Krishna, an important day here in India so late last night there were religious celebrations at temples. Today was Haji Dandi. For this celebration all over town in different neighbourhoods there is a pot breaking festival.

Krishna was known for being devious and loving dairy and in India this is kept in the home in pots and he would convince his friends to hoist him up and eat all the kurd (yogurt), so that’s why they have this celebration. It involves a lot of dancing in the streets, and then for the pot breaking they hang a pot above the street at least a few stories high (many stories high in the larger areas), and they make human pyramids to get the pot. The prize for winning the pot breaking competition is a sum of rupees! In each neighbourhood the surrounding businessmen, etc. each donate some money so in the smaller areas the amount would be less, and in the big areas of the city the pots would be worth thousands and thousands and thousands of rupees! (I wanted to join in just for the money)
The festival is mainly for men, although there are some very good all women pyramid teams. But since men are the only ones allowed to publicly dance there are mainly men out for this celebration. So you can imagine the number of stares we got as a group of 8 women (some Indian), for being out. For the most part it seemed like a big rave party and I couldn’t help but imagine Josh or Brad dancing around in the middle of the crowd. It made me miss the boys from home a lot. And you can imagine how sad I was I couldn’t get in the crowd and dance around too! Not only would it be completely against custom it wouldn’t have been safe at all, so I stayed away.

We were in the city centre for the celebration but some of the participants here from the Phillipines were uncomfortable in the crowds so we came back to Sangam before the action started. But it was okay because we caught the pot breaking in Indira Nagar – the neighbourhood next door to Sangam. It was really cool to watch, and for people who know me you know that I love anything with dancing, fireworks and a big celebration, so it was fun!

I also had a great rickshaw driver on the way to Laxmi Road for the celebration who was telling us all about the festivals coming up – since Ganapati is in the next few weeks. And he told us about his family, and asked about us, and in the end he sung me my song! There was this Hindi movie from the 80s or 90s called Julie and the song basically means “Julie, I love you” and something about how the guy is crazy with love! So that was fun! Aruna sings it to me all the time and its SO cute when she does it. Anyway he restored my faith in rickshaw drivers because last week I got in a big fight with one.
The story was that we were out with participants heading to MG Road – a major spot in town for a quick tour. So the boys had rickshaws brought into Sangam, I hopped in one with a couple from New Zealand and headed off. Like 10 minutes from Sangam one of the other rickshaws we were with broke down, but our rickshaw was fine. The driver decided to stop us at the side of the road for no reason to wait for the other one to get fixed…and he refused to turn off the metre. So it’s tickin away, I’m getting angry and trying to convince him to continue on – it’s not like he needed to follow the other guy to find the place or anything. He kept refusing so I jumped outta the rickshaw and made a big scene yelling at him in the middle of the street. In less than 30 seconds I had 3 guys coming up to me to find out what the problem was. That’s the great thing in India, if you have trouble with a rickshaw driver you just jump out and cause a scene and guys will come help you out wherever you are. Its great! So I had them help sort it out, and suddenly we were on our way. It was very exciting and I figure if you’re confident enough to start a fight with a rickshaw driver you’re practically a local…or at least one step closer! I just have to learn Hindi/Marathi and soon I’ll be set.
So ya, tonight was great – festival fun, and great rickshaw drivers…I think I will be able to manage this for another 7 months!