Last night I went to a Rotary party with my host mother for Diwali, which is tomorrow! We left the apartments with Mylswamy (a Rotarian who lives below us with his wife whom I call "auntie") and auntie around 8:00 p.m. When we arrived at the apartments where the party was to be held, I could hear some loud noise from above- I looked up to see fireworks coming off the roof of the building where we were headed! We took the elevator up four floors and walked up one more flight of stairs before coming out to see a party, with all of the Rotarians, their wives, and the many kids running around with sparklers and matches, lighting off fireworks in the center of the roof space! It was a little crazy with all of the little kids playing with the fireworks, so you had to avoid the middle of the roof if you didn't want to catch on fire...especially for me because the salwaar that I was wearing had net sleeves and a net scarf, making me a VERY flammable target...
I lit off a few crackers with a few little kids and then we played with sparklers. When dinner was served around 10:00 p.m., all the kids were sent into another room to have a meeting (one of the Rotarian's talked to us about an American girl who came to India a few years ago and is now doing community service projects here in Coimbatore for young girls who are in unfortunate financial situations. She raises money and then sponsors the girls for their higher education here in India.). It was a neat thing to hear about, and it would be very cool to get involved somehow!
After the meeting, about ten of the younger kids and I sang some Tamil Karaoke (luckily there were ten of us, because if I was alone...let's just say that it is EXTREMELY difficult to read Tamil written in English when you don't know Tamil.) and then we all went out and had dinner and desert of chocolate mousse. We left a little while later, saying good bye and Happy Diwali to everyone as we were walking down the five flights of stairs.
1 comment:
Diwali is a blast!
(sorry. couldn't resist...)
It's amazing there aren't a lot more fireworks injuries and deaths than there are. Nor only do they use BIG crackers — bombs, practically — but they don't exactly use a lot of safety sense in shooting them off. Yikes!
Almost every time we've gone to India, we've been there for Diwali.
In the North, they go all out and make an even bigger deal out of Diwali than in the South. There are bomb blasts all day and ALLLLLLL night, as if the city was being shelled by heavy artillery.
Before the holiday is over up north, people get pretty jumpy, they report their ears are constantly ringing, and the air pollution gets a gazillion times worse from the sulfurous smoke from all the crackers.
I'm glad you got a fun (albeit mellower) taste of a delightful festival! :D
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