Diwali

On the 9th of November it was Diwali. This is just about the biggest celebration of the year and everyone on campus was invited to the celebrations, organised by the first year PhD students (always a mistake). In return for my 200 Rupees I was promised fireworks, food, music and perhaps stick dancing (nothing like pole dancing on a miniature scale).

After being told that things started at 630pm I turned up on time to find nothing remotely looking like being ready. I'd forgotten to adjust for Indian time keeping. People were beginning to set out hundreds of little candle/lamp things along the roadsides and ledges on buildings (see first photo, unfortunately they were too faint to photo well and my photos came out particularly badly that night).

After an hour or so things actually seemed nearly ready. Fellow westerners Ted and Andreas (see photo two, I even got them to smile) showed up and there was even a sighting of mysterious Russian girl. The institute staff and their families began to show up and tiffin (snack foods) and chai was served (in thimble like cups, I drank about 20 of them). By this time they'd decided to unleash the sound system. This was a trailer with huge speakers (which you can just about see in the background of the first photo) and a tape of about 5 tracks on loop in a mysterious "Hindi-Hop" genre, which was, quite frankly, pants, unlike the Indian music we'd heard in town at Durga Puja a few weeks before. It was also played at at extremely high volume making it hard to hear anyone speak even though it was outside.

Before the major munitions arrived small kids started playing with firecrackers. I was thinking this was a little dangerous (no sparklers without gloves on now children) but this was nothing compared with what was to come. Lets just say health and safety was not an issue and throughout the fireworks people eventually inched back to prevent themselves becoming collateral damage. But in the end no-one died, and there were some pretty impressive fireworks, though someone should have probably explained that a Catherine wheel is not intended just to be put on the ground in the centre of a crowd and lit.

After the fireworks was the main food event which was a bit disappointing! Just the usual mess standard food (the Tiffin had been quite nice). We did get ice cream after though! This was eaten on the lawn behind the mess, and they kindly moved the sound system round, pointed it as and turned it up to 120dB so conversation, thinking,etc were impossible. Really it was far louder than a gig/club.

Fortunately we had prepared plan B and had some beers stashed away. Of course we weren't allowed to consume them openly but we snuck off to the veranda of the guest house where we could just about see the people on the lawn below, and despite being at least 100 yards from them still had to shout to be heard above the music. At this point the music was getting worse, and to prove the point they played a one western song, a spectacularly bad choice that I'll give you a prize if you can guess!

Well we had our beers and a chat and that was about it, the music continued at earthshaking volume and we caught a glimpse of the fabled stick dance, which wasn't up to much but is a rare opportunity for male students to actually dance with girls! They seemed to be enjoying themselves but they made a Trinity college bop look like the royal ballet. It seemed strange that many of the faculty and families were just sitting round in a circle watching this but as I say, the music made conversation impossible. I headed off to bed at this point. Despite the huge billing it was more like a Guy Fawkes night party than anything bigger.