**Special post for my Dad, since he ever so curiously asked me about this festival!
On October 6th (sorry for the delay!!) we celebrated the end of Navratri (which wikipedia cleverly informs me literally means nine nights in Sanskrit-nava=nine, ratri=nights), which is the Hindu festival of warship for the Goddesses. The Goddess of choice, at least in Maharashtra, to be celebrated was Saraswati: Goddess of knowledge, music, arts, science, and technology. Seeing its Sanskrit connections, it was great that we got to celebrate the Pooja for Saraswati at the place Baba's (my host dad!) grandfather founded. We were invited to a library, which Baba is trustee for, where Sanskrit books that are about 100 years old are stored! The library complex also has dormitory rooms for boys, who are studying Sanskrit and the like in Pune, offering scholarships to many of the students. Baba was sooooooooo adorable as he showed us around the library, his office, and the temple his grandfather built upstairs (it is very rare that a temple is on the second floor of a building!), beaming with pride. The library is working hard to preserve the books as they are getting old and becoming deteriorated. But, as Baba showed us, they have been making copies of the books to sell to scholars as well as working on a scanning system for the books to all be stored electronically. After the Pooja and a quick outing on Laxmi road, we headed back for some snacks...AND COFFEE!
After lunch and meeting up with friends at my new obsession Costa Coffee (best iced lattes in India so far!) I put on my dancing shoes for an evening of Dandiya Raas (a traditional dance...with sticks)! It was SO.MUCH.FUN! Although none of us knew what we were doing at first, we took a cue from Wedding Crashers and just began joining circles that seemed to know what they were doing. Many of the Indians we met were more than happy to show us the steps their dancing circles were doing, counting out beats and showing us how to use our sticks. It was a night that truly renewed, refreshed, and reclaimed my love for being in India. I don't have a lot of pics to show for the night, but many of our morning of Pooja (prayer) at the library. Photocred to my friend Sara for the picture (who has THE BEST repertoire of photos of me making beautiful faces [note the sarcasm] in her facebook albums!)
On October 6th (sorry for the delay!!) we celebrated the end of Navratri (which wikipedia cleverly informs me literally means nine nights in Sanskrit-nava=nine, ratri=nights), which is the Hindu festival of warship for the Goddesses. The Goddess of choice, at least in Maharashtra, to be celebrated was Saraswati: Goddess of knowledge, music, arts, science, and technology. Seeing its Sanskrit connections, it was great that we got to celebrate the Pooja for Saraswati at the place Baba's (my host dad!) grandfather founded. We were invited to a library, which Baba is trustee for, where Sanskrit books that are about 100 years old are stored! The library complex also has dormitory rooms for boys, who are studying Sanskrit and the like in Pune, offering scholarships to many of the students. Baba was sooooooooo adorable as he showed us around the library, his office, and the temple his grandfather built upstairs (it is very rare that a temple is on the second floor of a building!), beaming with pride. The library is working hard to preserve the books as they are getting old and becoming deteriorated. But, as Baba showed us, they have been making copies of the books to sell to scholars as well as working on a scanning system for the books to all be stored electronically. After the Pooja and a quick outing on Laxmi road, we headed back for some snacks...AND COFFEE!
After lunch and meeting up with friends at my new obsession Costa Coffee (best iced lattes in India so far!) I put on my dancing shoes for an evening of Dandiya Raas (a traditional dance...with sticks)! It was SO.MUCH.FUN! Although none of us knew what we were doing at first, we took a cue from Wedding Crashers and just began joining circles that seemed to know what they were doing. Many of the Indians we met were more than happy to show us the steps their dancing circles were doing, counting out beats and showing us how to use our sticks. It was a night that truly renewed, refreshed, and reclaimed my love for being in India. I don't have a lot of pics to show for the night, but many of our morning of Pooja (prayer) at the library. Photocred to my friend Sara for the picture (who has THE BEST repertoire of photos of me making beautiful faces [note the sarcasm] in her facebook albums!)
(The man with the plan, aka, Baba's Grandfather)
(At the Temple!)
(Dormitories for the boys, many of whom are provided scholarships for their housing)
(The alter for Saraswati after the Pooja. Baba's Grandfather is buried behind the blue gate)
(Shelves upon shelves of copied Sanskrit. We got the privileged of seeing original, hand-written pages as well as color-copied pictures of the artwork from some of the books)
DANDIYADANDIYADANDIYA!!
(Brenna, Ilana, and I waiting for the Dandiya festivities to begin!!)
(The traditional dress for the Dandiya celebrations is absolutely gorgeous! Photocred goes to my friend Sara for having one of the only pictures of the actual dance-end of the festival I could find! <3)
(Minus the skates, you can get a pretty good idea of what we were doing during the celebration...also include much more jumping, liveliness, and smiling!)
**When I told you I would look into it, I wasn't kidding around Dad. I know how to get in-the-field, live research done in India, Dad!!
dream.love.discover.DANDIYA!,
Dachelle
PS. Look for posts on my trip to Mumbai, as well as the last week of classes coming up this week! xoxo
PS. Look for posts on my trip to Mumbai, as well as the last week of classes coming up this week! xoxo
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