Festival

We're in the middle of a festival for one of the hindu gods right now. here's my very limited understanding of what's going on here...

last wednesday was the first day of the festival. people bring these idols into their houses or neighborhoods or buildings. There are little temple areas that have been set up ALL over. i walk past 3 or 4 big ones on my way to work. They play loud music, offer insense and other sacrifices, and have times of worship to the idol (i really don't know any more details than that as i haven't exactly been participating!) After awhile (the length of time varies. its supposed to be 12 days, but ends up being anywhere between 1 1/2 -12. i have no idea how or why that gets decided). So then they have this big procession and put the idol on the back of a truck and then the people march and dance and play loud music and drums and throw pink color powder on each other before the truck and they dump the idol in water/the ocean or any other big enough water body.

What this all means to me is that a day off work last Wednesday (it was an official bank holiday...everything closes...this was totally fine withe me. its nice having wednesday off. makes for a short week!). it also having to walk past really loud music at all the little temples that are set up, hearing the drumming and music for countless processions as they inch past my flat, bad traffic jams as the trucks and processions block a lane of traffic in their inching toward the water body, hearing fireworks incredibly often - but most of the time they're just noise makers - loud bangs - no pretty lights in the sky. All of these things are much more annoying than the day off! (and i've heard this is nothing compared with Diwali coming up in Oct)...

Today was the 7th day of the festival - which apparently is a peak day for taking the idol to the water. there's been a lot of action today...parades, noise ect. we did have a 1/2 day cause the traffic would be so bad tonight. (it was). again, the 1/2 day off was totally fine with me. and i spent the afternoon with 3 of my co-workers. it was a good day.

i don't have any deep theological reflections on the festival. i can't believe that you can block traffic like that and its no big deal. i think the music gets annoying. it does bring to the surface the fact that i am living in a culture that is not my own, and that most of the people i see don't know the living God.