Bonfires of Color

Some aspect of the Indian gene pool must contain a tendency towards pyromania. It’s the simplest explanation I can think of for the fact that every national holiday or festival I attended during my (now suspended) time in India involved burning or blowing up something or the other. Behold.

Diwali: fireworks and bonfires.
New Year’s Eve: ditto.
Lohri: check.
Holi (This one had me fooled — I just expected color. What did we get? You got it.): more bonfires.

I was in Udaipur for this last one, and had been advised to remain indoors because it was “very dangerous.” Apparently there’s something about throwing colored powder on people, many of whom are strangers, that often triggers another inexplicable trait specific to groups of Indian men: public misconduct on occasions of public festivity. In a typically Indian fashion, I couldn’t get many other details out of my friends and relatives as to what made going out on Holi dangerous. All I could gather from snippets and sweeping generalizations was that people get drunk or otherwise enter some altered state of mind and become prone to misconduct and deviant behavior. This was enough to convince me to take the day off from visiting sights and wandering through the streets. Given some of the stories I heard from others who either hadn’t been so advised, I had made the right decision.

Nevertheless, we did venture out on the night of Holi. (The festival is celebrated over two days, the second of which is apparently the one designated not for the faint of heart.) Wandering through the streets of the old city, we came upon an — you guessed it — enormous bonfire and party of sorts in the square at the bottom of the steps of the Jagdish Temple . I recorded bits of it for your viewing pleasure. Look out for a cameo by KA.

Happy Lohri and Pongal!

This past Sunday was Lohri, largely celebrated in Punjab and other parts of North India. Also, as I recently learned (thanks CB!), yesterday was Pongal, celebrated in Tamil Nadu and other parts of South India. Essentially similar events, Lohri and Pongal are like North American Thanksgiving with (in the case of the former) a little bit of Groundhog Day thrown in. I’ll spare you the history and cultural lesson (please check out the links to Wikipedia if you’re curious), but the holidays are an annual celebration of the upcoming harvest and a party to end the rest period before the gathering of crops. (No, K and I won’t be gathering crops this season, but maybe next year.) The Groundhog Day bit comes from the belief that Lohri marks the end of winter.

As K was frantically packing and preparing to head back to Canada on the night of Lohri (and since we didn’t have any clue as to how Lohri is celebrated), we didn’t anticipate partaking in the festivities. But our downstairs neighbors were getting ready for the customary bonfire and invited us to join them. Never known to shy away from a party, K and I readily obliged. Once our hosts lit the bonfire in the driveway, we all toasted to Lohri, walked around the fire, sang a few songs (or mumbled and smiled, in our case), and each threw a handful of popcorn, peanuts, and revri (a crunchy, sesame seed-encrusted sweet) into the fire. Presumably since the idea of burning things while celebrating outdoors was reminiscent of Diwali, our neighbors pulled out some firecrackers leftover from November. We proceeded to entertain ourselves with this additional form of a fire hazard for another 15 minutes or so before downing our drinks and excusing ourselves for dinner. Aside from visits by two groups of hijras, the second of which left happily with a wad of cash, the celebration was pretty mellow, and hey, who doesn’t love to play with fire every once in a while?