The Festival of Lights

Yesterday, while heading home from class, a group of us girls we were asked if we wanted to partake in getting henna. Henna, or Mehendi as they call it here, is a type of temporary tattoos that is commonly drawn on women here for festivals and weddings. One girl had her lower arms completely covered in a really ornate design--it was incredible. Some college students from a marketing college were doing a fundraiser and it was only Rs.50 (about $1) for a line. 

My good friend Laura gets her tattoo done

The designs varied for each hand and the artist wasn't using a stencil so I imagine she was just coming up with them on the spot. Very impressive I must say. Each design looked slightly similar but they were definitely all quite unique.


As we were finishing with the process of getting our tattoos, it started to rain. By the end when everyone had wet ink on their skin, the drizzle had turned into a downpour. We're talking monsoon level here. Oh, did I forget to mention that the Mehendi has to dry for at least 20 minutes? After that you can scrape off the black solid and see the orange dye underneath. Some women wait as long as five hours...and let me tell you after waiting 40 minutes, I can't imagine what those women do with themselves without the use of their hand(s). I guess before you get married you have a day filled with sitting and waiting for your tattoos to have their full incubation period. 


Luckily enough we called and managed to get the hotel to pick us up in a car but they pulled up right next to a raging river (the kind formed by the monsoon rains) so we all got soaked. When we got back to the hotel we had a special Diwali lunch and, for the first time, I ate an entire meal like an Indian. To clarify: Indians usually eat with their left hand in their lap, they never use it to touch their food or to shovel delicious morsels into their mouths. They do this because they have a different method of cleaning themselves after using the restroom that leaves them thinking this hand represents filth and should not touch food or maybe even other people for that matter. Anyways, I was quite proud of myself for managing to eat an entire meal (in which the hands are used with the puri or naan or other bread) with only the use of my right hand. 10 points for Christendor. 

These would certainly not be legal in the US

Now onto Diwali!! The festival of lights brought so much celebration and generally happiness, I've never experienced anything like it. We spent a lot of time setting of copious amounts of fireworks and sparklers, most of which I've never seen the likes of before. Why, you might ask...oh, right- because they are most commonly thought of as causing certain death in America. And perhaps this is very legitimate seeing as I did spend the whole time jumping away from things that looked as if they were on the verge of explosion. And of course, they were. While as far as I saw there wasn't anything that killed anyone, there was an incident with a passerby. We shot off this one explosion that sent sparks soaring extremely high. When they shot back to the earth one made its way directly into the purse of a passerby. She was very upset and came over complaining that there was now a gaping hole in her purse. hehe. 

Sparkler Shape!

After all the sparklers and celebration we enjoyed a lovely Thali dinner out with our professor, TA, and Hindi professor (they're quite the adorable trio).

Delicious thali dinner

 Diwali continues on until Sunday night so I want to leave you with another wish for a very Happy Diwali!!!

A design made of power on the floor of the entrance to our hotel