Ganesha Chaturthi - Our First Festival

Ganesh Chaturthi is a nine day celebration during which Ganesh visits in the form of a beautiful clay statue that is worshipped morning and night. As well festivities inside the school, there were trips, performances and the celebrations of everyone in the area seemed to spill together to create streets full of colour, music, drumming, dancing and laughing on a number of evenings.

Some of the boys listening to the music being played next to Ganesha

Festivities started on Thursday the 17th. As I had been ill during the previous few days I got very little sleep the night before meaning I was up to witness the building of Ganesha's shrine though the little glassless pane in our window. A number of male staff and a few older boys worked through the night to assemble poles and sheets, decorate them with religious symbols, place the covered 3 feet tall clay Ganesha statue inside, and cover it's base with a number of beautiful flowers, fruits and gold cups of burning scented oils. 

For Lottie and I, Thursday was our first opportunity to wear our lovely new Saris which we were very excited about. Once it was put on properly by one of the Aunties (following my failed attempts) I did feel truly elegant and I enjoyed it far more than I had expected I would. Sadly, some time in early afternoon, as Lottie and I sat in our favourite spot looking out into the courtyard waiting for the celebrations to begin (we had been told there would be an 11am start but we have since learnt that timings in India are never anything more than a vague estimation of when something may or may not happen) I became very ill again and retired to my room to 'take rest'- as they often tell me here. 

Naturally, I was sad to have missed the opening prayers of Ganesh Chaturthi but I was unable to leave my room for a few hours. I could hear prayers through my window and the occasional cheering of the crowd. Lottie later told me that festivities had only got under way once a guest speaker came in to read prayers for a few hours. As these where in Telugu Lottie and I didn't really understand a word but they were oddly comforting to listen to from my bed on the second floor. What I didn't see was that the whole school was gathered around the shrine with the mass of students extending down the steps that led up to it. As the prayers were being read they each had took it in turns to walk up to the statue, say a private prayer, have red powder placed on their forehead and had two lines of turmeric paste on their jaw lines. As well as this, dried rice was thrown to Ganesha as well as placed on the children's heads. To be completely honest, there was a lot of this festival that we didn't understand; our Telugu is still pretty limited and, while the children's English is very good, they seemed to find it hard to explain a number of things that they seemed to do out of tradition and habit. While it would have been nice to know the significance of more of the little touches, it was nice to just sit back and enjoy everyone having a good time.

Ganesha after his unveiling

Later in the afternoon I managed to prise myself from the room to join in with the evenings festivities. Luckily for my ill stomach these didn't involve too much movement. The little boys danced around to the modern Hindi and Telugu music that boomed from the loud speaker placed next to the shrine. As well as it being a special day for us to wear our saris, all the girls were dressed in their finest, most colourful outfits complete with necklaces, earrings, beautiful bindis and yellow painted feet (no one could tell me why they did this but it looked great). 

Some Yellow Feet- I love the colour coordination here

Bravilika and her friends in their outfits 

According to Lottie, the evening prayers were very similar to the morning ones that I had missed. The only major difference was that the speaker had been replaced with Padma who is the most devoutly religious lady I've ever met. She stood reading from the prayer book as we all sat and listened and the some Aunties and their daughters lit more flowers and slowly tossed rice at the statue. More turmeric paste was smeared on our jaws, red powder was placed between our brows and we were given our own rice to throw as the prayers drew to an end. As soon as the ceremony was finished, the music began again and the children broke away from their already lose formation and the boys danced. I'm sure that if I had not been so ill I would have noticed more of the beautiful details and might even have joined in more rather than just observed, however it really did feel like a feat to make it down from the bedroom- we had been at the doctors every night for the three nights building up to the festival. 

Padma and Ganesha

Over the next few days my health improved enough for Lottie and I to take a few little walks around Mayuri Marg (with a plain ice cream as a treat) to explore our new surroundings a bit more.  As seems to be the norm here, we had a trail of small children following us everywhere we went, holding our hands, asking our names and (more importantly) wanting to tell us theirs. There enthusiasm and joy to see us wandering about is imminently heart warming but a sight around the corner made cheered us up even more than ice cream and adorable small children. Down a very small alley there was a crowd of around 30 women and children surrounded by even more bystanders who, like us, where also watching what seemed to be an amazing party game. There was a pinata-like object suspended from a rope that was being pulled at the opposite end so the object swung all over the alley. Rather than being blindfolded to add an element of challenge to the game, the children were having bucket upon bucket of water emptied over them by the women who, along with the spectators, were laughing as the participants squirmed as the water hit them. We stayed until the pinata was hit and got back to the school feeling much happier and in the festive spirit than we had done when we left. 

The moment when both the water was thrown and the pinata opened 

It was this evening that a few of the little boys who often stop by our room to ask for chocolate decided to bolt the door in without us noticing meaning that we were unable to make our way down stairs for dinner at 7.20pm. We've been locked in before, often in the morning, however it isn't normal for the culprits to flee the crime scene so normally we are able to call someone to set us free without much inconvenience. This time we had clearly taken too long to notice the situation and the boys had given up on their attempts to gain our attention. This meant that that next half an hour was spend trying to work out how to set ourselves free which is a lot harder than we thought it would be. Luckily for us the dinner bell still hadn't gone meaning the courtyard below our room still contained a sea of children and a few staff who, we thought, would able to help us out. What Lottie and I had failed to consider was that, not only was the wave of noise these children created far too loud for our voices to over come, but also many of the children who could hear us weren't able to work out where our voices were coming from or what we were trying to say. After around 20 minutes of shouting at the top of my voice we decided to lower a message from the window (it read 'We're locked in! Send Help') attached to half a pack of strawberry Oreos. This plan was successful in the sense that the message did make it to the ground, however it was picked up by one of the Auntie's sons who was only 3 years old, unable to read Telugu let alone English and found the whole thing a massive game. His amusement seemed to render him unable to detect our desperation so we changed tactics to throwing scrunched up pieces of paper at any member of staff we saw walking past. Eventually, someone noticed us and a young boy was sent running up to unlock the door. Very warm, and crying with laughter at our situation, we made our way downstairs to be greeted by the kids to whom we had been crying out to for the last 30 minutes who found our situation hilarious. 

By this point we were very hungry and confused about the fact that dinner hadn't occurred at the normal time. When we asked Padma what was going on we were told that the whole school was going to be fed by the local community at the large Ganesha statue situated just outside the apartment block complex the school is in. Along with the rest of the students, we made our way to a car park below an apartment block right beside a very large Ganesha. At the entrance to the car park there was a large folding table on which there stood a number of buckets and pots full of Curry, Samba, rice and water. Under strict orders from the doctor to avoid anything spicy (which is quite a large ask in India) Lottie and I decided not to join either of the seated lines that snaked their way down the car park and instead offered to help carry and serve the curries to all the students, Aunties and Uncles. We marched up and down the lines calling out 'Samba' or 'Rice' and then poured the food onto the large paper plates of the kids that responded. By the end our backs hurt due to the constant leaning with a heavy pot but the whole evening was thoroughly enjoyable. We laughed with the Aunties at our role reversal and our slight incompetence at handing out quite the right about of samba per portion and chatted with the organisers whom we had met before and were eager to thank us for our help and even pass on some encouraging words about our illness and acclimatisation. They have been providing these meals to the school for free every year for the last 20 years and seemed to enjoy themselves as much as the children enjoyed the food. We were told to come back on Monday night when our stomachs might be a little better to give the food a second try which we were very happy to agree to do. 

The Mayuri Marg Ganesha 

On the way back to the school we were greeted by a group of men dancing around a to drums. They were prancing about with the same enthusiasm you might see  in England at a pub after the local team had one some important game and everyone had been drinking to celebrate. It was the kind of drumming we could hear late into the evening, and while they did invite us to join them (and it was very tempting) we did notice that there were no other female participants so we gave it a miss and simply bobbed along to the music with the kids as we made our way home. 

Late on Sunday evening Lottie and I were informed that we were going to chaperoning some girls on a program that evening and that we need to be ready to get the bus in the next few minutes. Slightly confused but eager for any trip we ran up to gather our stuff and by the time we got back down to the courtyard the small, 10 seater mini bus that had taken us to Hi-tech city the weekend before was waiting in the courtyard and was already full of students from the college that most students attend after completing their education at Devnar. There was a lengthy reshuffle of students and eventually we found ourselves inside the bus, pressed up against one of the windows (I perched half on Lottie's lap, half on mid-air). The bus was already at double capacity but there were still twice the number of students to be transported to the mystery venue to it was agreed to make two trips. This was the first time we had seen Hyderabad at night and it was beautiful- especially with the abundance of brightly lit and decorated Ganesha statues. Lights that you would expect to find at an English fairground were all over the city and, in our childlike fascination with the bright lights, we must have made very poor conversation with the girls from the college. 

The venue turned out to be Sundar Nagar, only 20 minutes or so away from the school. There was a brightly coloured stage with a Ganesha sat in the corner and a crowd that was slowly building. Before the second bus load of Devnar students arrived, the acts had already started. They consisted of four consecutive traditional dances performed by 2 pairs of Kuchipundi dancers. After 40 minutes these were over and, with the all the children now seated and eating chocolate bars they had been handed by the organisers, it was time for them to start taking to the stage. They preformed a number of songs and dances, mostly traditional but the older boys stole the show with their enthusiastic modern Hindi Pop dancing just as they had done at Hi-Tech City. There were also new acts I didn't seen before including large group dances with the college girls as well as a a beautiful guitar performance from one of the college boys which far better than I could have managed despite my 5 years of lessons and perfect vision. 

Sowjanya and Sri Ganges with some of the College girls 

Traditional Kuchipundi hair styles on some of the students 

Bargavi, Chitti and Pushpa 

The beautiful guitar piece 

The boys closing the show 

When it was time to return to the school it Lottie and I ended up not being able to fit into the bus on the first trip. While we didn't mind this initially as the bus carrying even more than two people per seat, it later daunted on us that we should probably have been on the first bus as we had been on the trip to keep an eye on the girls but, with all of them on the bus, we were left with only a few Uncles and the older boys. While, in England, this situation wouldn't have caused any concern, the strict societal rules about male and female integration here meant that the situation felt a little wrong some how. There was nothing to be done about it though so we sat with the boys and chatted about school and music- they forced me to play and sing a little but their demands for songs put me very much on the spot and we ended up reverting to singing a few lines of popular pop songs to see how many the boys could identify. Much to Lottie's dismay it turned out to be very few. 

On Monday evening we for filled our promise to eat the the curry at the car park which made the hosts very happy indeed. Our paper plates were piled high with more 'Curra' and 'Annam' that any human could possibly consume and, while it was genuinely really nice curry, the spices meant that neither of us could manage that much, even when I had mine covered with butter milk to counteract the fuzziness the spices caused in my mouth and lips. No one seemed to mind that much and instead just laughed and smiled; they were happy that, after a week of eating just plain rice, we were eating and enjoying their food. 

Car Park Dining! 

Every night and every morning for the duration of this festival there were prayers very similar to those that had occurred on the first night. The loud speaker also turned out to be a semi- permanent fixture that meant the boys danced around the courtyard as soon as school ended every day. There were also even more visitors coming to the school to hand out chocolate and snacks to the children. It is very common for wealthier families to turn up at the school on the birthdays of their children to distribute sweets and fruit to the children as a charitable gesture however, during this week, there were whole stalls set up making all sorts of sweet and spicy foods (many of which Padma refused to let us try in an attempt to prevent further illness). 

Festivities drew to a close yesterday, on the 25th and, to mark this, Padma called us into her room and dressed us up in beautiful Saris, necklaces and bangles. As I had done the week before, I did feel very elegant, however the material of the borrowed Sari was twice as heavy as my own which meant I spent the day debating weather feeling like an Indian Princess was really worth it in this heat. It's close to call but I probably would wear it again if offered the chance.

Lottie and I sat on the steps by Ganesha 

The girls and Aunties laughing at the dancing

As normal the day started with prayers and it's body was taken up with even more dancing; the number of participants growing throughout the day. Much like the previous Thursday, I wasn't well at all so spent the morning and early afternoon resting to make sure I was fit enough to watch the evenings events. 

By the time I came back down, the drummers had come into the courtyard and most of the school had made their way out. The drums were definitely the centre of attention and attracted the boys from every grade. The girls, in contrast, were all to shy to join in with the jumping about. It did take a fair bit of convincing from both students and staff before Lottie and I allowed ourselves to be dragged into the heart of the dancing but once there we did give it our best go. People seemed to enjoy our participation and the older boys who had performed in Sundar Nagar were very eager to have us copy their moves. This was more than tricky in the heavy Sari I had on and I was constantly worried that the pins would fall out and I would unravel- luckily this didn't happen our dancing caused no injury or embarrassment.  

Our dancing from a distance

Soon after the dancing it was time for final prayers and then to move Ganesha to unite him with the larger Ganesh by the car park. This took at least 10 of the older boys, Uncles and Aunties. By the time the 2 or 3 minute walk out of the compound was complete all of them were covered in so much sweat that they looked liked they had been caught in the monsoon. There was more drumming, singing and plenty of applause when the statues were finally seated together. As the dancing that was happening on the main road seemed to be for the men only, Lottie and I headed back the school with the children before too long and decided to end our first busy festival week reading our books as we sat in our favourite spot. It was at this point that the heavens opened and we experiences the first rain we'd had since the week of our arrival- a very big relief after a day of boiling in our Saris. 

Moving Ganesha 

United 

This week has been hectic, and while it was unfortunate that both Lottie and I were ill though much of it, we did our best to have fun and we definitely did. I am exhausted but I would do it all again in a heartbeat and cannot wait until the next festival so we can wear more beautiful outfits, dance into the night and, hopefully, properly try out some new foods!