Durga Puja

This post is about a month overdue, but I wanted to tell you guys about my Durga Puja experience. October is basically a month filled with Hindi festivals in India (which explains why I got two long weekends off from work in a three week span). I've already described my experience with the Dusshera festival in this blog (see below for tales of outdoor theater, exploding effigies, rampant nationalism, etc) but what I neglected to mention was that falling smack dab in the middle of the Dusshera festival which runs for 10 days is the Durga Puja festival.

I actually still haven't figured out if the Dusshera festival is in some way related to the Durga Puja festival since the two seem to basically celebrate the same thing--the triumph of good over evil--or if these are two totally separate events, each being celebrated by different sects of Hindus. (I've actually asked this question to a number of Hindu friends, but there seems to be no consistent answer.)

Basically, Durga Puja celebrates the victory of the 8-armed goddess Durga over an evil buffalo demon. It's seems to be celebrated by large fairgrounds filled with people eating chanting and dancing around an effigy of the Goddess. Also, from what I saw, there seems to be much ritual blessing going on--though that is pretty common all over India (and not just during a festival).

So, on the date of Durga Puja off I went with a friend to a nearby fairground. Here's the thing, in India, and especially in Delhi, there are just SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere that events get pretty big, pretty quickly. Below, for example, is one view of the fairground we attended (after standing on line for 40 minutes just to get in the front gate); that big structure is housing the effigy of the Goddess Durga.

The inside was packed by of chanting people trying to dance around the effigy and it was hot and sweaty and I couldn't get close enough to even see the effigy and it was not a very pleasant experience. So, my friend and I left the large tent, ate some delicious kulfi (Indian ice cream).

Other than see the effigy and eat there really wasn't much else to do on the fairgrounds, so we decided to leave and wander around the area, which was dotted by smaller celebrations.

And that's when we stumbled upon this:

Off of the main road we came across a small tent filled with people, smoke and incense. In fact, the air was so heavy with smoke that it was difficult for me to stay inside even for a few minutes. But for a few minutes I took shallow breaths and enjoyed the spectacle laid out before me.

An old priest, sitting before a small but richly decorated effigy of the goddess was giving his blessing to all comers. From my vantage point it seemed that the blessing consisted of a few words of prayer, marking the supplicant's forehead with red dye and rice, and eating some for the food offered by the priest. My friend urged me to step forward and be blessed, but I declined since as an agnostic-leaning-towards-atheism it can make me feel a little uncomfortable to play with other people's religious practices. (Which isn't to say I mind being blessed, of course, if someone wants to bless me of his or her own accord I'm all for it. I just think that it's a bit disingenuous for me to put myself forward as a supplicant.) I did however get a magnificent picture of my friend during her moment of blessing.

You could like, feel the spiritualism dripping from the walls of that tent. But after a few minutes I couldn't take the smoke anymore so we left and resumed our wandering, coming across many several other smaller effigies of the goddess and attendant dancing and/or blessing ceremonies. The whole area had a truly celebratory and spiritual vibe about it. Though, when it comes down to it I think I have to say that I preferred the exploding effigy celebrations more.