..SouthAsiaRocks..

This year, our neighborhood was quite active for Dusshera.  At one end of our street, one of the major political parties here, set up a Dusshera celebration.   Here are some guys putting the effigies together and filling it full of fireworks! They had quite the political statement for their celebration.  (Basically that expensive water, fuel, electricity, diesel, gas, etc and FDI (bringing in foreign companies like Wal-Mart) are like Raverna (the demon god)... and are the evils of today....)  Here's their set-up at the end of our street.... you can't see it very well, but they had all three effigies there that they burned....  They burned VERY quickly at this one... So quickly that by the time I pulled out my camera, it was already on the ground!!  Our street looked like those CNN videos of rioting cities :) haha!!  There was burning stuff all over the street :)  Many people will get a piece of the leftover wood/bamboo...

October 24th is a holiday here called Dusshera (or Dussehra - Click HERE to see older posts on Dusshera).  On this holiday, people will gather at parks, where huge statues of Ravana (the demon god) are burned at the end of the night.  It celebrates the triumph of good over evil.   Anyway, the other day we were on the metro and we saw where there were making a BUNCH of the statues and decided to jump out and check them out!    The girls thought it was so cool! :)  Aashini thought they were hilarious :)  They have so many that they are making, that they are using space all over the place to put the heads, bodies and arms :) haha!   It made me laugh to see the heads waiting at the bus stop with people next to it :) haha!  Aashini thought it was hilarious to be put up into his nose :) haha!!  Diya did NOT think it was funny :) haha!  Poor little girl... :) The big statues are made like paper mache'.   They ...

Last week was Guru Nanak's Birthday.  This is a big holiday for Sikhs.  Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh religion and the first of their 10 Gurus.  In many ways, this holiday is a celebration of the beginning of Sikhism.  We live in a neighborhood that has a very high population of Sikhs, so our neighborhood is abuzz with all the festivities! The other day (a few days before his birthday), I walked out of my house to see this: It was one of the many parades that took place last week.  We had at least one parade a day for a week!  Some days there were multiple parades.   Since it's an important date then there were also a lot of  weddings as well.  It was quite an exciting week!! Here are some of the kids getting ready for the parade. This is one of the trucks for the parade. There are multiple Sikh Schools in our neighborhood and they each had something to do in the parade. Here are a few of the groups marchi...

Wednesday was Diwali  :)  It's an exciting time of year.  For those in America, think of Christmas season... lights, people out shopping and buying things, stores (and markets) full of sales and fun things to buy for loved ones, special TV shows for the holidays, etc...  Diwali is a 5 day holiday but Wednesday (the 3rd day of Diwali) is what people usually refer to as "Diwali".   The first day of Diwali is called Dhantaras.  During this day people honor and worship Lakshmi (the goddess of Wealth).  Purchasing new things - especially in the form of a precious metals like gold or silver - is said to bring good luck and wealth to your family and household for the next year.  The more precious metals and more money you spend, the more luck and wealth you will have.   This is what one store in our little "mall" looked like (there are only a few stores in the mall open now - it's a new mall)... it was PACKED out!  I had so much fun in ...