Celebrating Diwali

Last week I was extremely fortunate to be able to take part in and experience Diwali. Diwali, also known as the festival of lights (you should be able to see why from the pictures) is the biggest Hindu festival of the year and something I was looking forward to since last winter when I decided to come here for the fall term. The festival did not disappoint! Here are some of my experiences during Diwali.

Lights & Explosives

- The city literally erupted in firecrackers for more or less 4 straight days, and when the sun went down it was a non stop show up until around 5am the next day! The city smelled like one big pile of gunpowder and was extremely hazy. 

- Almost every house was beautifully decorated with lights and some with bright lanterns and Rangoli art at their doorsteps. We were lucky enough to have Nilo come and design Rangoli on our front door.

Family

- Unlike many of the other festivals that I've seen so far which were centered around loud music and dancing in the street with huge stages and strobe lights, Diwali was really nice because every night we would walk down some of the side streets near our flat and see families hanging out around and coming to greet us in the street and shake our hand to say Happy Diwali. 

- A couple of friends that I have met since being here brought over some sweets (Indian candies) as a gift for Diwali which is tradition when visiting someone's house.

- Walking at night and just watching families designing Rangoli or sitting in front of their front door chatting and spending time together was something I looked forward to every night

Energy & Atmosphere

- Walking down the street you could feel like excitement, especially with the kids who were in absolute heaven. What kind of kid wouldn't love a festival centered around sweets and blowing things up? 

- We went to buy the ridiculous amount of firecrackers with Amman and his cousin. It was really great to see how excited they were and kept asking us excessively "You come tonight to get us right? We must light the cracker together!" It was adorable!

Danger

- Total number of bikes/cars almost destroyed = 2, total number of houses almost blown up = 1. Each time the "rocket bomb" was the culprit. The first time the rocket ignited uncontrollably into the street there were two motorbikes waiting, and it exploded right in front of them, they seemed surprisingly calm despite the fact that it came so close.

- A few days before Diwali, people were already lighting off crackers in the streets, so myself and another Canadian went out join. The first cracker we lit up literally exploded in his hands, it was a huge explosion. Looking back I'm not sure how he wasn't hurt more than a few cuts on his hands. I couldn't hear anything for 10-15 minutes and I had a huge light in my eye for a while as well. I would like to know how many people visit the hospital every Diwali because of firecracker related injuries!

Shopping for lights in Pune

Nilo designing doing Rangoli in front of our door

Rangoli

Gokhale Nagar street behind our flat

Arsenal of fire crackers

The Diwali Crew

Lighting a firecracker on the side of Pashan Road

Group photo (notice massive cloud of smoke behind us!)

Life in Pune

I've been busy with final term assignments for the last 3 weeks or so because school is coming to an end in a few short weeks. Because of this I haven't left Pune for almost a month, since returning from Leh, but I hope to change that next week for the Diwali festival. I've been writing down some observations, good and bad, and some moments that left me smiling, over the last few weeks and I thought I'd share.

1) Monsoon season is over, and the heat has been intense over the last 2-3 weeks. This has brought some intense thunderstorms which have been amazing to watch. Pune is sort of in a valley so the thunder has a nice echo. The warm weather also means arriving at school extremely sweaty from the bike ride.
2) The end of the Monsoon has also opening my eyes to how sheltered I am in my residential area in Pune. Our main road is now most days filled with people selling every possible item imaginable, and at night the streets are full of people sleeping. The overpass in front of the campus has a community of about 50 or so people living underneath of it cooking and setting up shelter. Leaving campus and seeing this immediately is such a stark contrast.
3) Riding my bicycle around Pune is STILL one of my favourite things to do. Especially when a bus passes me that is full of people and children hanging out the doors yelling Baba or Hello Hello trying to get my attention.
4) Booking a train ticket in India is quite the process. First you have to book months in advance on popular routes if you want to even have a shot at getting a confirmed seat. If you are like me and book only 3 weeks in advance, you get waitlisted and have to wait until the few days before to see if you get a seat or not.
5) I went to a tailor to get a custom made shirt last week, and it will cost $8 for both the fabric and the labour!
6) I am definitely immersed fully into daily life now, which is great because I feel comfortable and like it is part of home. However, the wonder and excitement that accompanied everything I saw the first month or so isn't as frequent. So when a cow stops traffic near our house, a dog comes into class during lecture to hang out, when I have to fight to stay ahead in line, or when I see a family of 5 on a bike, it doesn't seem so different. I am excited for Phil to be coming in one month, as I'm sure seeing all of these things through his eyes again will be tons of fun, and bring me back to my first few weeks here.
7) Everyday after class myself and a few other classmates head over to the canteen on campus for chai and some snacks. The man that runs the kitchen is straight out of a cartoon, and is quite the character. I often order ek (one) chai and teen (three) wada pao, which is basically deep fried mashed potato balls with spices inside served with bread, it is delicious and the ones on campus are not very greasy. The street food wada pao is dangerous though!

As for my plans for the next few months, I am off to Mumbai for 3-4 days next week to celebrate Diwali, likely stopping in Matheran after Mumbai before returning to Pune to finish off school. After that I travel to Nagpur to volunteer for one week, and then I pick up Phil in Mumbai for 2 weeks of traveling in Maharashtra and Kerala. Erin then comes to visit a week or so after, and our tentative plans are to visit Tamil Nadu, and parts of the North East of the country that is less explored. I am also really looking forward to showing her around Pune and sharing all of the things I have been experiencing these last few months with her. Should be an amazing few months ahead.

India Wins Again

Yesterday was just one of those days. Everything seemed to be going wrong, I was convinced the universe was out to get me! There is a saying I have heard from a few people that have travelled in India, and that saying never applied more than yesterday! "India Wins Again!"

The day started off with class at 9am, where I received my first exam grade. After the exam was over last week, I was very confident that I had scored at least 80%, there was no way that I would do poorly, I nailed every question. Turns out, my mark was 60%. Myself and some of the other exchange students here apparently cannot grasp how to write an India exam compared to Canada. It is somewhat frustrating to score so low after working so hard on studying for the exam.

On my bicycle ride home, the traffic was the most insane I have seen on SB road since arriving here. (the main road between the flat and the university) One rickshaw in particular I was ready to run off the road as he kept weaving in and out cutting me off, almost hitting me a few times. The majority of the time he was slightly in front of me, which meant I was choking down fumes for 30 min on the slow ride home.

Ego slightly bruised, throat and eyes burning from the bike ride home, I arrived home in a state of slight panic, as I realized the conversion of these grades will most likely affect my chances at some government positions I applied to for this year's recruitment stream. It might not seem like such a big deal, but after spending 2 weeks pouring hours into essays and cover letters and resumes for these jobs I had hit somewhat of a breaking point that is would all be for not. But after a few emails back home to Carleton, the whole issue was clarified and as long as I get 55% here (which is actually a decent grade) I will be fine! Crisis avoided!

I spent the day relaxing at home reading an amazing book called Persepolis. India loves it's festivals and celebrations, which means our neighborhood for the better part of each month sounds like the inside of a club playing terrible techno music (the fireworks are nice though!) So for 4 hours last night, like the other nights this week the music blared and there was no refuge from it! I've had a few people in Pune tell me they weren't a big fan of all the festivals, at first I didn't understand how this could be, but I'm quickly realizing why someone would not enjoy it year after year!

All that being said, I finished off the day on a very high note, with Julie and I successfully using Parvin's pressure cooker and making an amazing Chole Masala. (yay for a small victory!!) I knew it was good when I looked over and saw Aisha, Parvin's 3 years old niece, licking the plate clean :-)

To The Roof Of The World

My long awaited return to the Himalayas finally arrived last week when our plane touched down in Leh. This part of the Himalayas however, was extremely different compared to Nepal, where I spent some time hiking a few years back. The landscape was extremely arid and the conditions much more harsh. Anjali, Julie, and myself flew in to Leh last Friday from Delhi, and because of the extreme change in altitude (going from 560m in Pune to 3500m above sea level), we spent the day sleeping and walking around the bazaar and exploring the town trying not to exert ourselves too much. Leh itself is quite touristy, but we ended up arriving at the end of the tourist season as the winter was starting to arrive. This meant that the town wasn't overcrowded with tourists, and it often felt like we had the entire place to ourselves in the mountains.

After our first day, we all felt acclimatized, and we took a local bus to a nearby town called Thikse. After walking around asking locals where to find the bus (none of the buses have signs) we found the right bus and waited until it was as full as possible to finally leave to Thikse. Once we arrived we ended hiking up to the main attraction, the Thikse Gompa. It was an amazing view from the top, with Buddhist monks meditating throughout the monastery. This was one of the first times I could feel the effects of the altitude. Climbing even two steps left me out of breath most of the way up, it was a great feeling to push my body in this way for the first time, and the reward at the top was an amazing view. Afterwards, we decided to walk 5km to a nearby village called Shey, which had an amazing ruined palace. We hiked to the top and had another amazing view of the valley, and could even see the Thikse Gompa in the distance.

Thikse Gompa

More views from Thikse

View on the way up to Thikse Gompa

The highlight of the trip, was our third day when we went up the highest motorable road in the world to Khardung-La. After asking around Leh how to get up this road, I found out it was possible to bike down from the top on the road, I couldn't turn that opportunity! It ended up being one of the coolest things I have ever done. The combination of the extreme altitude, rough roads, incredible views, and that I was bombing down these roads on a bicycle was unreal. Many times when we reached a flat part on the road I was stand up as high as I could on the bike and it literally felt like I was flying through the mountains. It was an unreal feeling that I will never forget.  Before the bike ride down, when we were at the top, I tried to climb a little bit higher, just to say I tried to climb at such a high altitude, but it was extremely difficult. Every step upwards was a challenge, trying to step on moving rocks, in snow up to my knees, and also the fact that I was having trouble breathing and things were getting a little blurry. Probably for the best, a military officer told me and another foreigner that we weren't allowed and we had to stop and head back down. Regardless it felt pretty amazing to be standing at the top of the highest road in the world.

Near The Top of Khardung-La

The final day in Leh we woke up at 4:30am to hike up the the Shanti Stupa, 500 steps to the top, to watch the sunrise. We had the entire stupa to ourselves while watching the mountains light up from the sun. After a nap, I spent the rest of the day hiking up through the narrow winding streets of Leg to the hills surrounding Leh, and ended up finding a quiet area on a rock at the top of the highest point in Leh, away from any other tourist. I spent most of the afternoon there, reading and then watched the sunset.

Leh Palace & Gompa

Hiking Up to the Palace

Mapping It Up

A few people have been asking where exactly the places I have been posting about are located in comparison to Pune. I thought it would be fun to try and map out on Google the places I have been exploring.

View Places Visited in a larger map
As I was writing up this post I can across my first post from the week before leaving Canada. I made a list of a few things I wanted to experience during my semester in Pune. I remember typing the list up in our flat back in Ottawa, it is amazing that only 7 weeks later I have accomplished most things on that list. Hampi, Leh, Matheran and other nearby hill stations have all been visited, FRO registration is behind me finally with no late fees paid, and I have eaten almost every veg Punjabi dish available I am sure of it, along with a bunch of South India dishes as well. Still have to do a 20 hour train ride, although after the 20 hour journey to Hampi it seems much less appealing!

Hope all is well with everyone back home!

Eid Mubarak!

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to celebrate Eid with a family. My first week here I mentioned that we had a maid, Parvin, come in during the week at our flat, and I was a little uneasy about it at first. However, both Julie and I have gotten to know Parvin and her family quite well, and she invited us over to eat for Eid. Parvin has two children, Aman who is 11, and Nilo who is 16. They are the most adorable kids, extremely kind and generous.

Myself, Anjali, and Julie got a little dressed up and walked down the street to Parvin's place to eat. Lilo is quite the artist, and did Henna on both the girls which ended up looking amazing. Communication is sometimes difficult, Parvin speaking very little English, but her kids and nieces speak quite well. We have tried to learn a few Hindi and Marathi words but in all honesty it is so different than English, French or Spanish that is usually results in a fail! But knowing a few words does help and I think we all had a great time.

Parvin cooked us all a great meal, which ended up being one of the spiciest dishes I have had so far in Pune, an egg curry with chapati and rice. It was delicious! We chatted with her family while eating, and Lilo and Parvin's niece performed some traditional Marathi, and Rajasthani dancing which was amazing to watch. Everyone was dressed in beautiful saris, the colourful dress of the women here in India, with their matching bangles and earrings are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.

It was extremely touching the generosity and love that was given to us. Julie at one point called Parvin our Indian mother, and after that she started calling me Baya (spelling likely wrong!) meaning brother. Overall, being at their place felt extremely warm and comfortable, it felt like being home in a way. 

Afterwards, we brought Lilo out for ice cream down the street which was a great way to hang out and calm out burning mouths from the delicious food! Being invited in to Parvin's home and being treated with such kindness and generosity during such an important celebration was extremely touching and is something that I will always remember.

Main area of the compound 

Parvin and I

Eating delicious Indian food (After 20 minutes of eating rice with my right hand I failed and grabbed a spoon)

Parvin and Nilo

Aman on the left and his cousin

Hampi

The last week has been full of wonderful experiences. Last Wednesday was Eid, a muslim celebration marking the end of Ramadan, and later that evening after the celebrations we boarded an overnight bus to Hampi in the State of Karnataka to spend 4 days exploring. I will leave my Eid experience for a separate post, as the wonderfulness of Hampi will require a long post.

I remember reading about Hampi back in the Winter as I researched places in Southern India that would be worth a visit. After reading about it online, it was definitely on the top of my list of things to do during my time here. 

Before getting to the bearing my love for Hampi, it is worth mentioning the hell we went through getting to there. Our "12 hour" bus ride ended up consisting of 3 bus changes, 26 hours in transit, and one car accident. Our bus ended up rear-ending a car a few hours outside Pune causing some substantial damage to the vehicle, and of course the driver of our bus had no insurance, so we waited at least 2 hours for the police to come. After they never showed we went to some kind of hotel and restaurant, where we drank chai and ate Pohe while we waited about 3 hours for a new bus to come pick us up. When all was said and done, we arrive around 10:30pm on Thursday, instead of our original arrival time of around 9am.

The ruins of Vijayanagra located in and around Hampi date back to the Hindu Vijayanagra Dynasty which lasted from the early 1300's until 1565, when it was overtaken by the Muslim Confederacy. At it's peak, due to its excellent location it was one of the most fortified areas of the entire empire, that covered much of the south. It was easy to see why, because there were literally thousands of gigantic boulders everywhere on each hill and valley throughout the surrounding area of Hampi. I'm still not quite sure if they were naturally there and weather worn, placed there, or a combinations of the two.

The sheer size of the ruins in terms of distance was one of the highlights of the trip for me. We decided to rent motorbikes to cruise around the area as most of the ruins were spread out over 30-40 kilometers. Driving the bikes on some of the dirt paths next to the giant rocks, banana trees and various ruins was one of the most amazing experiences so far. The pictures taken don't even come close to portraying how impressive the vastness of the landscape is. It was mind blowing that I could drive for 20 minutes on a dirt road away from the main temples and ruins, get off the bike an walk up a bunch of boulders and then stumble upon more small temples hundreds of years old in the middle of nowhere. If this site were in Europe, it would be flooded with tourists and would definitely not be such a unique place. Honestly, it amazes me that more people do not come to Hampi, I know when most people think India this area is not what comes to mind. However, it was one of the most unique and fascinating places I have seen. 

One morning we decided to get up early to see the sunrise at the top of Matanga Hill, but unfortunately when we reached the top it was extremely cloudy and did not get to see it. The view from the top in itself was worth the trek up though, especially scaling some of the rocks up the path to the top with nothing but a headlight guiding the way.

Another amazing moment was on our last night in Hampi, on the way back from exploring we ran into a procession for the Ganesh Festival (sidenote: Ganesh is the Hindu God of wisdom and prosperity and the festival is biggest in Maharashtra, especially Pune and Mumbai. The festival is 10 days, so I look forward to catching it in Pune over the next few days) The traditions involves bringing the Ganesh across town and at the end spraying water on Ganesh and then floating it down the river. It was amazing to hear the drums and people dancing all the way through the bazaar until finally sending Ganesh down the river. On the way down the bazaar a little girl came up to me with a big smile and both arms out straight. I thought she wanted to dance with me, but she started to grab my hands and run in a circle, so I started to twirl her around in the air as we marched down the road with the group. She was extremely happy and we did this two or three times before she ran back to her mom at the side. It was incredibly cute!

The bus ride back was only 14 hours, but was not without excitement. In the middle of the night, an argument started between a passenger boarding in Bijapur and a man claiming to have the right to a window seat. After some insults back and forth the one man ran to the back near where we were and started fighting, yelling and punching the man near the window. This woke the entire bus up and delayed the bus by 30 min or so, but it could have been worse if the police had gotten involved. 

Once we arrived in Pune, we heard the bus driver shout Swargate which is an area near our flat. Half asleep we hurried and grabbed our bags and hopped out of the bus. As soon as the bus pulled away we realized we have made a huge mistake, and were in Swargate District, which is over an hour outside Pune, rather than Swargate station in the City Centre. This whole situation was almost identical to another travel failure when Erin and I were travelling in Ghana, and realized there were 4 Tema stations in Accra. After a hard negotiations we finally made it home after a long rickshaw ride.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend, and I highly recommend anyone traveling to India to check out Hampi, it is truly an amazing place and the pictures below barely capture it's incredible landscape. I hope to upload some more pictures that the other OMG'ers have been taking in the next few days as well.

Krishna Temple

Overlooking the site from Matanga Hill after Sunrise

Post-sunrise on Matanga Hill

Virupraksha Temple in Hampi

Panoramic view from some rocks we climbed

Monkey's hanging out on the side of the rocks

View of the dirt path we biked on for many hours, we would take breaks along the road when there were interesting things to see or climb