By Siddharth (c) 2009

The Flying Spaghetti Monster! Blessed am I to experience His Noodly Appendage.

The Oconee County Civic Center was flooded with bright pinks, blues and yellows last Sunday night, as members of the greater Athens Indian community celebrated Diwali, the Indian new year, with a vibrant dance performance.

While the dancers – ranging in age from 3 to 50 plus – danced in different styles, there was a consistency in their grace.  Beginning with little girls dressed in miniature saris and adorned with jewels simply swaying to soft music while holding candles to the joyful, airy Garba style of music, the performance’s movements were clean, well-executed and beautiful.

The groupings of the dancers were determined for a reason:  young girls and boys danced in a couples’ dance and a group of married women danced in a circle around a lantern, symbolizing prayer for their husbands’ well being.

Some performers used the Bollywood style of dance — using song rather than dialogue to tell the story of the Indian New Year’s significance.

The story goes: While in exile for 14 years in the forest, Prince Rama killed the demons he came across, until his wife, Sita, was abducted by the demon Ramayana.  After a struggle to save his wife, the two returned to their kingdom, where everyone was happy to see them return safely.  While not a Hindi speaker, the basics of the story came across clearly for me in the performers’ dance and song.

Dances originated from different regions of India, including Gujarat and Kerala, where many of the performers once called home.

In the evening’s most polished performance, by the University of Georgia’s Indian dance group, four students dressed in traditional costume and danced in the vigorous Bhangra dance style to loud, strong music beats that made it difficult not to get into the performance.

Everyone in the theater Sunday evening had a smile on their face.  Some, because they were performing for their friends, families and peers.  Others, because they were watching their children carry on Indian traditions.  And still others, like me, because they were experiencing an invigorating art form so atypical of American culture.

While the performance had much to brag about in elegance and beauty, it was certainly lacking in its technical aspects.  Microphone mishaps and harshly colored spotlights on the dancers’ faces were difficult to ignore.  The use of a fog machine throughout the performance added to its amateur and somewhat frustrating quality.

It took a bit to realize that this, too, added to the evening’s community appeal.

The performers were not professionals, but rather, members of a community interested in getting together and celebrating a culture they are no longer immersed in — a community trying to pass on traditions to its young people.

If considered as a professional dance performance, the Diwali event failed miserably.  But considered in the context of what it was — a celebration — the performance was as electrifying as the saris its performers and attendees wore.

-Anna Dolianitis

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Yesterday we celebrated Eid and Diwali we had a party. We had loads of food and  we had lots of fun. We played games we played musical statues and musical bumps.

by Jordan

In the comments:

What do you do to celebrate Eid?

Can you explain why Muslim’s celebrate Eid?

A new day, A new way of life, and new resolutions. These things captivated my mind as I stepped into the morning haze of October the 17th. After all, each and every festival carries profound significance to which we relate in our own way. So, for some it signifies the triumph of good over evil and for others just a day when you celebrate in extravaganza. For me, as it dawned upon me, it was the beginning of a period of transformation into someone who wants to enjoy life to the fullest, find beauty and pleasure in the infinitesimal moments, be more kind and rewarding rather than sarcastic or criticizing, be more open to others’ ideas and beliefs and at last be more tolerant and patient. I don’t know why I came to this conclusion. Perhaps some raw events in my life have, inadvertently, led to this. But I know, I am still trying to adapt to this society which remains an enigma to me with its varied colors, moods, individuality and psyche.

The note got too serious??..Yeah I think so…So let me cut back to what me and my friend were discussing on the auspicious occasion of Deepawali. Although what we were conversing about didn’t carry a bit of what we call pure thought! So here are the excerpts from that interesting conversation.

Sandy: (On the phone) so, what r u doing on diwali?
Udi: Nothing Yaar. Just timepass. Will be eating outside for dinner.
Sandy: Kya yaar. Let us do something interesting.
Udi: Like what?
Sandy: Let us buy some firecrackers and light them up.
Udi: How is that interesting? It is done by everyone else and there is nothing new.
Sandy: I am not talking about the usual firecrackers. Do u understand now?
Udi: (puts on the thinking cap) OHO!!….(A smirk followed by a muffled laughter)
Sandy: So, first let us categorize these “Firecrackers”…Okay??
Udi: Okay. Go ahead!!
Sandy: First comes the “FulJhari”. This type of cracker doesn’t burst at all. It burns and burns until it goes out.
Udi: So wat will happen to me if I light up this one?
Sandy: U will not enjoy it much. U may catch fire but it will not be exciting enough. And the burn will linger longer than usual.
Udi: Oh No!!
Sandy: For you, the “Pataka” will do the trick. U light it up and then u adopt wait-and-experience approach. U don’t know when it is going to burst. So there is a surprise element. A thrilling moment.
Udi: And when it bursts?
Sandy: U will go all out with it. A sudden impulse and rapid culmination of ur desires!!!
Udi: That’s wat I am looking for, Buddy!!
Sandy: But this is not the end of the story. There is another one called “Charkhi”. But I have my doubts whether u have the stamina enough to keep up with it. It will rotate, wobble, vibrate and revolve and may go off track. U will have a hard time following this type of cracker and it will test ur patience!!
Udi: I am better without it!!
Sandy: Another cracker which will fit ur taste will be the “Rocket” type. This type will make u go higher and higher until it lefts you in the middle of nowhere from where u can only fall. High risk but high return.
Udi: I like the element of adventure and peril in this one. I think I can fall for this one, no matter how steep or how hard the fall!!
Sandy: But the bad thing is no cracker lasts long. So over time, U will have to keep lighting up different ones.
Udi: That doesn’t sound so depressing to me!!
Sandy: yeah, Gud Luck!

And so the conversation ventured off to some other terminating point after this.

Saturday, 17 October 2009 was Diwali.  That didn’t mean much to me early in the day, it wasn’t until after dark that all the fireworks started!

I thought all day about how I wanted to approach D and get him to admit to, get him to talk about, his infidelity.  Since I still didn’t have any real proof, I felt that I would, once more, have to lay things out for him and ask him for an explanation.

I spent a portion of the day out shopping, mostly for food, as I planned to make a nice meal for us, with wine, not only for relaxation purposes, but since I was very tired and still somewhat in shock, I was having a difficult time getting up the anger or whatever it is that is necessary for me to confront someone.  It was a long day and evening.  D was uncommunicative and didn’t seem to appreciate the nice meal, but I probably drank more than half the bottle of wine, and then started in on the Scotch Whisky while doing the washing up!

The evening was wearing on, and eventually, D went upstairs to use his computer.  By then, the fireworks were in full swing and the evening was mild, so I went out to sit in the back garden and watch.

When D came back downstairs, I heard him call my name and then he came out the back door into the dark, asking me if I was ok.  I told him I was just fine, and asked him to stay outside with me for a few minutes.  I took him by the hand, he tried to resist, but I held onto his hand and asked him to come and watch the fireworks with me.  He came out onto the grassy lawn with me, and I asked him if he remembered the last time we’d stood out in this garden watching fireworks?  It was New Year’s Eve, we had some of our own fireworks and enjoyed ourselves – we were happy.  He agreed that it had been a happy evening.

I then asked him ‘what happened to us?’  He seemed mystified as to what I was asking him.  So I then asked him, ‘what happened to you about six weeks or so ago that has made such a great change in your attitude to me?’  He still seemed to have a difficult time understanding what I was getting at!  I tried to lay it out for him a little more clearly:  you’ve stopped telling me you love me, you’ve stopped calling me ‘love’ or any other endearment, you won’t hug or kiss me and you avoid my hugs and kisses.  It all seemed to have started at about that time and I wanted an explanation as to what was going on.

Oh, NOW he was getting the idea, but I basically got a little bit more of what he’d given me in mid-September.  He was confused, he needed time to think, things had changed, he wasn’t sure how he felt about the marriage (at least he admitted to that finally), and then he basically repeated that cycle as I tried to get him to explain himself a little further.  He wouldn’t though.

The conversation ended with me telling him that he was going to have to give me a better explanation, and he’d better start thinking about it NOW.  I also told him that, whatever was going on, if there was any hope of saving our marriage, I was willing to work on it if he was.  He was somewhat non-committal during the whole conversation.  And he went back into the house to watch TV!

I took a shower and went to bed.  He joined me a little later and not a further word was said between the two of us.  He was snoring in no time flat.  My mind was spinning with the next part of my plan, and I suppose it was about 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning when I decided I wasn’t going to be able to sleep that night and might just as well try to sleep on the sofa…with access to my computer…ready to implement the next part of the plan.

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Day 5 – Tuesday, 20th October 2009

I woke up in the morning with an awful headache, a sore throat and a red nose. I managed to catch a cold from Rafael, who himself was feeling better with each day. The perspective of walking for hours in the mountains with an exploding head was quite daunting. To be honest I didn’t feel like leaving my sleeping bag at all. Usually at home I would stay in bed trying to fight off the illness. On a trek, however, you don’t have that option. So I had to do the usual that is, wash, dress, pack my bag and join the group for breakfast. And maybe that new daily routine helped me forget about how awful I was feeling. Once I had my morning tea things started to look a bit better.

Our target for today was reaching a village called Machha Khola, which is situated at 883 metres above sea level. The scenery during our walk was stunning. As usual, we had to cross a few suspension bridges and believe it or not, I was getting better and better at ignoring the fact that they were wobbly. We climbed up onto a ridge overhanging the rapid waters of the mighty Buri Gandaki. The river has a strange colour. It seems white or light grey, sometimes silver. It is because the river carries the dust of the Himalayas. The mountains have been eroded by the water for thousands and thousands of years, hence the river’s colour.

After a while the path went back down to the banks of the Buri Gandaki. We passed a few settlements and rice terraces with even rows of this precious plant, so vividly green. Soon we reached the village of Lapubesi, which is inhabited by the Gurung people. The Gurungs live in the central part of the country, in areas such as Gorkha and Baglung and the high slopes of the Annapurnas. They are Tibeto-Burman people, usually farmers raising rice, millet and maize. They adhere to the Hindu and Buddhist religions, although they also have their own unique shamanistic religion, which certain rituals and ceremonies the Gurungs still combine with the beliefs of the two dominant religions of Nepal.

We stopped for drinks in a small tea shop in Lapubesi. We were greeted enthusiastically by a group of young people running the business. The girls served us lovely tea, while two young men enjoyed being in the centre of our attention. They were very confident and open, talkative as well, although their English was far from perfect. You could see that they are influenced by Western pop-culture. They wore black leather jackets, denim trousers, and one of them had a baseball cap. It was not, however, so much their appearance as their attitude that revealed their modern, Western inspired image – very cocky, ‘I’m a famous rock star’ behaviour. We had a little chat with them and it was quite shocking to discover they didn’t want to marry, because the girls in the local villages were ‘ugly’. Charming…

They were a bit tipsy, as they were celebrating ‘Man’s Day’ from early morning hours. They even offered beer to the guys from our group, but it was definitely too early in the day for that… Instead, the girls had a better idea: they gave each one of us a blessing by painting a tika on each person’s forehead and then putting colourful garlands around our necks. They also gave us some sort of deep fried pastry as a snack. It was very nice with the tea! As we were sitting there by the table, chatting and enjoying our break, we noticed a lively gathering in the backyard. We went to see what was happening and we saw people from the village playing instruments and dancing dressed up strangely.

Boys were pretending to be women, wearing long skirts and scarves covering their heads. They had long shawls tied around their waists. The boys spread those shawls in front of themselves, so that others could through flowers into them. At the end of the ceremony we would through money as an offering. As three young men were dancing, the others chanted hypnotising songs. Our Sherpa guides told us that during this local version of the Diwali festival, which lasted for a few days, the people celebrated animals, such as dogs and cows, but that particular day it was all about celebrating men. It is uplifting though, that they asked for offerings, which they would then, hopefully, give to the women. Everyone was included and gender equality sustained.

When I say everyone was included, I mean everyone! For a while we were just standing in front of the artists, observing their dance and taking photographs. Soon, however, we were invited, or rather pulled into the circle and found ourselves dancing with the villagers. The scene was beautiful. A bunch of Western tourists, with colourful dots painted on our foreheads, flowers stuck behind our ears and colourful Christmas-like wreaths around our necks, dancing like crazy with these charming people. It was a great experience, and it was also great being able to participate in such an event, interact with the villagers, and not only stand somewhere nearby taking pictures. It’s interesting how you can communicate without words. There is a huge wall between us in terms of the languages we use, we don’t understand each other very well when it comes to exchanging ideas verbally. Non-verbal means of communication are, however, very important and often much more useful in uniting people, with such different cultural backgrounds.

Finally, when the dance finished, we continued our trek to Machha Khola. We stopped again for lunch in a village called Nauli Khola. Immediately, when we sat down to eat, a bunch of local children ran up to us asking for chocolate. We said we don’t have anything for them, but they were quite stubborn and kept begging. It was rather annoying, they just didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. It’s interesting when Rafael compares Nepal when he visited it ten years ago to the way things are these days. One of the sad things he noticed was that Western tourism spoilt the people. They are now more demanding, even the smallest children believe they can reach their hand out and receive something for nothing. Years ago the children Rafael encountered on his previous treks certainly weren’t as cheeky as the ones we’d seen so far on this trip. They used to be shy and didn’t run out on the path shouting ‘hello, chocolate!!!’ or ‘hello, give me your pen!!!’. I understand that these children are poor and underprivileged, but I simply hate being blackmailed into charity.

We arrived in Machha Khola in the afternoon. The evening looked pretty much the same as usual. Dinner was superb! It’s amazing what our cooks were able to prepare taking into consideration the technical limits. That day we had a delicious soup, vegetable curry and spring rolls, and pineapple for desert. Yes, our Sherpas even prepared desert! Every day! After supper we had another surprise waiting for us. A group of children from the village came to our camp and started singing and dancing to celebrate the Diwali festival. They organised a show especially for us. They were chanting for over an hour, and soon the guys from our group joined in and danced with the children. That day was certainly all about dancing and celebrations!

A young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of “Diwali” to his younger brother, this is how he went about it…

“So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something… since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so.

He decided to get his wife and his bro. along…you know…so that they could all chill out together. But DUDE, the forest was reeeeal scary shit…really man…they had monkeys and devils and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked ass with darts and bows and arrows… so it was Fine. But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro., Lakshman, pissed… And you DON’t piss this son-of-a-gun cuz, he just kicks ass and like… all the gods were with him. So anyways, you don’t mess with gods.

SO, Ram, and his bro. get an army of monkeys… Dude, don’t ask me how they trained the damn monkeys… just go along with me, ok… so, Ram, Laksh. And their monkeys whip this gangsta’s ass in his ownhood. Anyways, by this time, their time’s up in the forest…And anyways…it gets kinda boring, you know… no TV or malls or shit like that. So, they decided to hitch a ride back home…and when the people realize that our dude, his bro.

And the wife are back home… they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice… and they didn’t have any bars or clubs in those days…so they couldn’t take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit…and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also… so it was pretty cooool…you know with all those fireworks…Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks..And you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding..,that was the very first music-synchronised fireworks… you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, THAT was how, like, this festival started.“

The mother fainted.

ROFLMAO I’m trying to trace the origin of this fantastic email fwd to no avail .. Anyone with info, please leave a comment ..

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I read Mary Patillo-McCoy’s Black Picket Fences a couple of weeks back; the book is a fascinating study, not just of the black middle class, but also of a way of doing political science that falls outside the quantitative paradigm. Her main conclusion is that the black middle class, by virtue of being spatially and socially contiguous with the black poor, differs significantly from the suburban, predominantly white middle class. Patillo-McCoy’s three years’ worth of fieldwork in “Groveland” (an alias for a black middle class neighborhood in Chicago’s South Side) gives her a compelling narrative with much explanatory power- amongst other things, it illuminates the various constraints on black, inter-class mobility.

While the book was interesting in and of itself, it also resonated at times with my own interest in the Indian diaspora and the NRI complex. Consider the following excerpt (Sharon, the subject of the passage, grew up in a middle-class Groveland family)):

It was not until Sharon went away to college at Jackson State University, a historically black school in Mississippi, that she became more knowledgeable about ghetto styles. Jackson State, she joked, “should be called Chicago State at Jackson.” Her classmates were “Chicago people tryin’ to be hard, knowing when they got home they were like nothing.” From her judgment, Jackson State was full of freelancers. She referred to her friend from college as her “ghetto friends.” “They’re streetwise. They’re very, very streetwise,” she said in explanation of what she meant by “ghetto.”

The emphasis on the “ghetto” identities of Sharon’s Chicago friends reminds me an awful lot of the overwhelming “Indian-ness” that many Indian college students in the US project. The underscoring of their Indian-ness in contrast to the Indian from America (ABCD) is a large part of the constant identity-construction project that Indian students here engage in. Indeed, desis here seem quite proud of their representative identity, one that does not hold up under closer inspection….we cannot lay claim to being representative of “the real India”. I recall a recent encounter with a gent from Delhi, talking about UChicago’s Diwali celebrations, who remarked,

“I got so sick of all these ****ing Americanized desis and their mock-Diwali that I eventually told Gandhi and Jinnah (two desis, one from India and the other from Pakistan; the names have been changed) that we should head out…we spent the rest of the evening in a corner playing cards. Like these ABCDs know what Diwali really is.”

Its quite remarkable that even a solidarity-building event like the festival of Diwali can be turned on its head and appropriated for the purposes of delimiting identity boundaries! I have no doubt that the Diwali festivities here bore only a passing resemblance, at best, to the traditional Diwali that people are used to in India. However, the implicit belief that by virtue of experiencing the festivities and living in India, one is significantly more Indian (again, ponder on the nebulous nature of that category) is farcical. The majority of students here, coming from India and Pakistan, belong to the upper middle class; theirs is a privileged existence back home, oftentimes divorced from a number of realities. By way of example, I recall the aftermath of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Bombay and the reactions at UChicago. Most people were rightly shocked at the attacks, the carnage and the national blow inflicted by Ajmal Kasab and company. Terror had struck Bombay hard, the Taj had been laid to waste and it was time to reclaim the city. Of course, anyone with even a vague memory would recall that terror has been with Bombay for a while now…it was just hitting South Bombay hard for the first time.

Brief digression: for those not familiar with Bombay, South Bombay is the home of the wealthy and the upper middle class. It is no coincidence that every Mumbaikar that I have met at UChicago happens to live in South Bombay. I am making no value judgment here (South Bombay is beautiful- I would personally love to live there)…merely pointing out a fact.

A taxi driver in Bombay remarked to a friend, shortly after the November ‘08 attacks, “Is baar aap jaise logon ko bhi takleef hua hai, toh sarkaar zaroor kuch karega” (translation: this time its inconvenienced people like you as well, so the government will definitely do something). The calls to “reclaim the city” (whose city?) and hold candlelight vigils came by the cartload, with one disgusting individual at a UChicago forum even remarking that it was time to deprive the non-elites of their votes, since clearly they were voting for the wrong politicians. Interesting facts, given all this: this past general elections saw record-low turnouts in South Bombay. It may be a harsh assessment, but those in a position where they can afford to forget, often do so. The elites cry out about political accountability and then fail to follow up on it…does that not make us complicit in the malpractice?

The point here is that Indian representations of “the real” often miss the mark quite badly- Bombay has been under attack for a while, but it required the siege of its more familiar areas- to some- to jog a lot of people out of their slumber. Similarly, I think most of the Indian elites studying in the US are out of touch with numerous ground realities back home- the same can perhaps be said of Indian Americans, but that is precisely my point- an artificial distinction is often drawn. As Sharon said of her friends from Chicago, “they were like nothing” when they got home; Indians studying in the US are not a representative sample of the Indian population. That many of them would proceed to lay claim to representing that country even on these premises, is silly.

As I mentioned in my original post on this issue, I think this conceit is fundamentally tied to the desi construction of identity as a negation, as the exclusion of the ABCD and the Indian American. More on this as I think about it some more. For now, all I have are the crudely articulated thoughts above.

Universal Peace Federation

43 Lancaster Gate, London W2 3NA

Email: pa@uk.upf.org Web: www.uk.upf.org

Invites you to

National Interfaith Week

Hosted by Prof. Lord Bhikhu Parekh

Celebrating and learning from Diwali – Festival of Lights

Speaker: Vijay Mehta
E-mail: Vijay@vmpeace.org

Committee Room 4A House of Lords

Wednesday 18^th of November, 2009, 5.00pm

Introduction

Diwali or “Festival of lights” is an occasion of joy, prosperity and brightness. It is a significant festival for Hindus,

Shanti Mehta and Vijay Mehta

Sikhs, and Jains. While in Hinduism, Diwali signifies victory over Darkness, it marks the attainment of nirvana by Mahavira, in Jainism. Sikhs often represent Diwali as a ‘Day of Freedom.’

The festival has emerged as a prime tourist attraction of Varanasi and present a breathtaking spectacle as millions of diyas are lit on the ghats and sent floating the river waters. A large number of people, including Indian and foreign tourist, congregate on the ghats and take boat rides to witness the spectacle. Since the day also marks ‘Kartik Purnima’, millions of Hindu devotees take a dip in the river Ganga. The event is also beamed live on TV and singing and dancing events also take place on various ghats.

For Hindus, Diwali is a five day extravagant affair. Dhanteras, the first day, is considered auspicious to buy Gold, household articles and specially utensils for kitchen. On this day, People gift “golden leaf” as it signifies prosperity and luck. Choti Diwali is the day when Lord Krishna killed Narakashura and freed the world from fear, according to the Legend. Laxmi Pooja or the actual Diwali is celebrated with a Pooja dedicated to Goddess Laxmi. Padwa is dedicated to the household cattle, where a pooja is done for them and are fed with goodies. Bhai Duj is a special day for siblings where the Brother visits the Sister’s house to celebrate the day with them.

Diwali day starts with an oil bath, after which everyone wears new clothes and sits down for a pooja of Goddess Laxmi. The whole house hold is lit with diyas in the evening and everyone, adults and kids alike play with crackers. Diwali day also sees lots of cashew studded milk sweets and other sweets. Friends and relatives visit each other to share wishes and Diwali Gifts. It emphasises on the joy of giving and sharing like all other festivals. This festival is celebrated not just in India, now but is a global festival.

There are some negative aspects to Diwali like incorrigible shopping, needless purchases and vulgar display of wealth which marks every Diwali. All these trends are propagated by market-driven forces. Most Indians put up a spectacular display of blinking lights, fire-crackers and blaring loud music.  This is a form of indulgence and is a waste of money while billions of people around us live in abject poverty.

It is time we started pondering whether Diwali is just revelry or a very deep-seated faith in addictive consumerism, an urge to possess and an equally inescapable desire to flaunt and display ones belongings.

Conclusion

How can we make multifaith festivals meaningful in the 21^st century, especially to the younger generation and teach them the rights/wrongs of this world.

Our role as human beings is to be a trustee of this planet. While celebrating Diwali, we should ensure that we do not destroy our precious planet but use this festival to improve and enrich our life, heritage and culture. I wonder if some of you have read the article in the Economist of November 7^th 2009 issue. In it, the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon, said to an audience of spiritual leaders of all faith, I quote, ‘you are the leaders who have the widest, largest and deepest reach. You can make a huge difference in tackling the climate change crisis by linking up faith and green issues and save the planet for future generations.

In conclusion, let me say that celebrating festivals including Diwali is one of the greatest uplifting experiences one can have. If you go back in time in your childhood, one of the high points of a child’s life is to attend festivals along with the family, relatives and friends of different faith and religions. It was a constant source of joy, happiness and creativity. It can be a great learning curve for multiculturalism – a recipe for peace, prosperity and a safer future for all of us.

Day 4 – Monday, 19th October 2009

I survived my very first night ever in a tent without any major crises. I actually enjoyed the whole experience of feeling snug as a bug in my warm sleeping bag. Writing my diary and reading a book by the head torch light was also fun. It reminded me of my childhood days, when I would read under my blanket with a torch in my hand, way past my bedtime. Although it was easy to get used to life in camp, I still had to figure out a good system of quickly unpacking and packing my kit bag in the morning rush. After bed tea, served by our Sherpas, we got a bowl of hot water to wash ourselves. Then we were expected to quickly leave our tents, as the porters were waiting to dismantle them. We had a very nutritious breakfast, consisting of porridge, eggs and toasts with jam, honey or peanut butter. And tea again. We had to get into the habit of drinking a lot. This is very important when you’re in the mountains, as being well hydrated prevents getting most of the unwanted symptoms of high altitude sickness.

After breakfast all our bags, tents, tables and chairs had to be quickly prepared for the upcoming journey to our next campsite. The porters gathered everything into huge bundles, tied them together and were ready to go. I couldn’t imagine this trek taking place without the help of our staff, the Sherpa guides and cooks and all the porters, who patiently carried our equipment and provided us with all the basic needs. It is unbelievable, how strong these people are, how heavy loads they can carry for hours and hours, uphill, downhill and on every possible terrain. Where we needed our professional mountain boots and trekking poles, they would just wear flip-flops. Where we had to take every step carefully to avoid twisting our ankles, they would jump carelessly or run through those rocky paths like some sort of super heroes. We sometimes felt awkward about the fact that they have to work so hard but then again, being a porter on a Western-organised trek is supposed to be quite a good job in Nepal.

We left Arughat before 8:00 am and followed a path leading along the Buri Gandaki River. There were a few suspension bridges on the way, which were certainly not the highlights of the walk for me, as I was still fighting my fears. At one point, however, a bridge of some sort would have been quite useful. The path went right across another smaller river, which nobody expected to be there. It wasn’t as bad as it looked at first, and anyway, we didn’t have a choice, we had to take our shoes off and just keep on marching. Our guides made sure nobody would slip on the rocks and very soon we were all happily on the other side. It was actually nice to take off our boots and give our feet some nice treatment in the cold river water after a few hours of walking in the heat!

The views we could enjoy during this walk were stunning. We passed green rice fields and mountain slopes covered in trees. We were accompanied by the ever present sound of water, flowing dynamically in the mighty Buri Gandaki and falling from high above, creating beautiful cascades. We passed small villages, where people greeted us enthusiastically. In one of them a group of small children approached us and encouraged us to take some photos. They were very excited and all over the place. They wanted to see their own faces on our camera screens, so each time someone took a photo, the children would surround the person and point at the picture laughing and shouting ‘It’s me, it’s me!’ in Nepali.

We had lunch under a tree by the river, close to a village called Naya Bazaar. Our team spread a plastic blue mat on the grass, on which we sat and enjoyed our lovely meal. We were happy to stop for a while and relax after a few hours of walking. Sheila and Richard are wildlife enthusiasts, so they entertained us by pointing out the strangest and most beautiful creatures, from birds and butterflies to caterpillars, spiders and leeches (the latter I watched from a distance for obvious reasons).

After lunch we carried on walking until we came to a village called Sati Khola, where we stopped for a drink. It is worth noticing that although this is meant to be a remote area of Nepal, there is no trouble with finding Coca-Cola or other Western soft drinks and chocolate bars in practically every local village shop. Once again we were surrounded by children, this time dressed up in colourful garlands and with huge tikas painted on their foreheads. These kids were quite cheeky, especially one boy, surely the leader of the group, who insisted on being the centre of our attention… and our frames. He was always first to pose before the camera and then persistently wanted to see himself (and only himself) on the screen.

Just a few minutes after Sati Khola, in a village called Armala, we were stopped by a group of local Maoists. They set up a (quite illegal) check point and insisted that we pay money for a permit to continue our trek. The whole situation was ridiculous, as we already had various government permits bought in Kathmandu and this one was certainly not planned. The men demanded that we pay 2500 rupees per person. Of course Tenzing, our sirdar, began lively negotiations with the Maoists as nobody wanted to pay that amount. It was obvious that the men wanted to take advantage of the situation seeing a big group of Western tourists. Tenzing was very persistent in guarding our interests. We couldn’t refuse to pay altogether, however, as we wanted to avoid a more problematic and unnecessary confrontation. Luckily our guide managed to reduce the price to a thousand rupees per person, which considering the illegality of the whole enterprise was still much too much. It’s funny that the sign on their check point said ‘All visitors are warmly welcomed by United Revolutionary People’s Council Nepal Tamwan state Committee Workers.’ I say, what a genuinely warm welcome… When we asked the Maoists what they do with the money, they replied that it is ‘to fight with the government’. This argument is quite funny, especially as the Unified Communist Party of Nepal is now a legitimate political party, which even led a coalition government until May 2009. I don’t see why they need to ‘fight’ the government and take money from trekkers. We were all pretty sure that they would buy themselves some beer with it anyway…

We reached our campsite in Liding at around 14:00. Our tents were already being put up by the team, including probably the most important one – the toilet tent! It was the very first time I was to use this facility in Nepal. I am used to Asian style toilets, as I experienced the dreaded by Westerners hole-in-the-ground during our 2008 trek in Turkey. But this was something special, a separate tent, with a hole dug in the ground! Sounds awful, but wasn’t actually that bad. I would say it’s even better and cleaner than so-called toilets in lodges.

We had a bit of a rest and then followed our new daily routine – washing in a bowl of hot water, having our (traditional by now) afternoon tea, reading books, writing diaries, chatting with each other, having dinner at 18:00 (banana fritters for desert – yummy!) and after some nice evening conversations, going off the bed… that is off to our tents and sleeping bags. A new journey awaited us the next day…

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(Thane) In an earlier post, Audrey discussed and criticized President Obama’s decision to take part in an explicitly religious Diwali ceremony. Again, there’s nothing wrong with a President celebrating the non-sectarian elements of the holiday. If Obama had lit some firecrackers and distributed sweets, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. But instead, the President lit a lamp with a strong Hindu religious significance while a Hindu priest chanted mantras. Here’s the picture again:

Audrey posed several criticisms of this decision. First, it subverts the American principle of separation of church and state. Obama can (and should) do any religious practices he desires when acting as a private citizen, but he should not turn religious ceremonies into official state functions. Second, the ceremony flatly discriminates between religions. It is incomprehensible to think that Obama would bow in the direction of Mecca as part of a Muslim ceremony in the White House, for example.

One point that Audrey didn’t make is equally important, in my view. Obama’s participation in this ritual lends credence to the poisonous ideology of Hindu nationalism. There is a culture war within India right now. On one side are those who, following the inspirational examples of Gandhi and Nehru, affirm that India can be a thriving multiethnic and multireligious democracy that respects the rights of all equally. On the other side is the movement of “Hindu nationalism,” led by the RSS, an organization dedicated to promoting a distinctly Hindu view of India. The RSS’s views can best be summarized in the following quote from one of their most influential leaders, M.S. Golwalkar:

The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no ideals but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture … or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment–not even citizens’ rights.

Motivated by this ideology, members of the Hindu nationalist movement have often been the perpetrators of acts of religious violence, both riots and massacres of Muslims and of Christians. In addition, it was a Hindu nationalist–and former RSS member–who assassinated Gandhi.

So where does Obama’s Diwali celebration fit into all this? Well, in today’s Times of India, there’s an editorial by Tarun Vijay, one of the leading “intellectuals” of the RSS. The editorial features a picture of Obama lighting the Diwali lamp, much like the picture above, and uses it as evidence that Hinduism is on a “global high.” Here’s an excerpt:

Swaminarayan temples world wide are turning into Hindu awareness centres … Time magazine’s cover story was on the healing powers of yoga and chanting of ‘Om.’ This is the first year that Diwali was celebrated in that seat of world power, the White House. … The point to note is that today’s Hindu is different from before. … His political affiliations may vary but he believes that India needs a revival with an unmistakable Hindu stamp.

(Note the mistake: Diwali was also celebrated during Bush’s administration. But Bush didn’t participate in the religious aspects of the celebrations. The full editorial, but without the Obama picture that ran in the print edition, is here.)

Now, this kind of rhetoric is common in India, and the RSS would be a dangerously influential force with or without the Obama pictures. But it’s a little bit unsettling that it is now possible to publish this sort of sectarian and divisive rhetoric under a picture of the President of the United States.

Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is a religious event for Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains, it takes place between the end of September and ends in October.  The festival is celebrated internationally around the world by people of religious backgrounds and those who are interested in learning and participating in different cultural events.  In some countries with large populations of Hindus such as India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Guyana Diwali is an official holiday.

In Canada, Diwali is celebrated by the Hindu, Sikh, and Jain communities as well as by others who may have an Indian heritage or want to celebrate the beautiful festival of lights.  On October 9^th, 2009, the Rogers Centre hosted an event for the public to come and celebrate a part of Diwali known as, Mahautsav; the dome was transformed into a marvelous array of lights.

Diwali receives publicity and promotion through word of mouth, religious groups, leaders, followers, and charities.  Diwali has been celebrated for thousands of years and does not really need media promotion and publicity, however, at such events that took place on October 9^th at the Rogers Centre media will be present and there will be pre promotion from supporters and sponsors at such events.