Skip to main content

Lohri

We definitely live in the land of a million and one holidays! Saturday we had a holiday called Lohri. Different people here have varying definitions as to what this holiday is all about, but the basis of it is that every January 13th, everyone builds fires all over town and celebrates that winter is begining to end. They say that after January 13th, the temperature will change and begin to get warmer and warmer from then on. That night people had fires EVERYWHERE! It was funny! About every other house or so on our street had a fire in front of their house or on their driveway. Some people had even hired "mini-bands" to come play at their fire in front of their house. (In the pic above you can see a bass drum and a couple of brass instruments)Our neighborhood association area had a Lohri party. They had a fire and snacks... as well as a stage and seating area! At the begining of the performance, kids came up and did a sort-of talent show. Most of the kids played their electronic keyboards. It was cute! Then they had some "professional musicians" come and play. It was a fun party! I have to say that I LOVE that there are so many holidays here! It makes life exciting! One of my favorite holidays is coming up on Tuesday! - Basant Panchami! (Kite day!!!) Hopefully I'll have some good pics from that! It's definitely going to be different to celebrate it here in the capital than it was in M-town, but it still should be pretty fun! I'll keep you posted!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cooking!

Cooking is sooo much harder here. THis is how you "puree" vegetables when you don't have a blender or food processor (or power). Some people have those things, but most people don't. This is my friend Gita. She's mashing up some onions. It's a marble slab that's not polished and they use a big rounded rock and just roll/mash! It's cool!!

Protesting

There's some political stuff going on in our city (and now the country) right now. People are peacefully fighting against corruption. It's been very interesting to follow. Tonight there was some protesting in our neighborhood. Here are some more protesting pictures. There will probably be more protesting to come... we'll see what happens!

Jaya's Engagement!

My good friend Jaya (Mayank's sister that lives in M-town) - just got engaged!  On Sunday, I took the trip to M-town to go to her Engagement Ceremony (or Ring Ceremony).  It was a lot of fun :)!   First Stop - Beauty Parlor!  We walked a little ways down the street to a lady's house.  The beauty parlor was in one of the rooms in her house.  Jaya had already been to her house that morning to get her hair done, but now it was time for the makeup.  This beauty parlor was interesting because it only had 2 light bulbs in the whole room (and they were the energy saver kind that were dimmer than the regular ones), so it wasn't that bright inside the room.   Here's a pic of Jaya in the chair getting her makeup done.   Notice that her hair is crimped.  They use the crimper on people's hair when it's a special occasion - awesome!!! They put a  bindi  on her head and then the lady painted more and made it super fancy. Here's the finished product (after 1.5 hours)!  She...