This past rest day we went to Mamallapuram. Not everyone
went though. It actually ended up being Dance Master and I who chilled together
all day. It was nice though, nice to spend some one on one time with her before
she leaves for home this coming Friday. We
watched a family of monkeys steal from humans and hiss at dogs for a bit, got amazing foot and leg massages, ate a
lot of pizza and may or may not have accidently/kind of purposely put ourselves
in the middle of a religious celebration.
It was obvious that something was going on in the temple
behind the pizza restaurant because the music was super loud and ongoing, but
when we saw this little party of people start walking around, we knew we needed
to investigate further.
By the time we got done paying for our pizza, they had gone up the street and down the beach. We walked down there only to find that this processional of people were continually moving up the street, back towards the temple. Each of the houses along the way had what I would described as offerings set outside them, and when the procession reached each house, the head of the house would come out, present their offering, and then wash the feet of all the members of the processional. Of course this was done to drumming and singing and lets not forget the two men that started dancing in front of the procession. We were trying to figure out what compelled them to just start randomly dancing, and we concluded that they must have been moved upon by whatever God it was they were celebrating because there seemed to be no rhyme or reasons to the dancing, when people would join in, etc. It was cool, but it was almost kind of scary because it was like they were in a trance, either possessed or high/drunk or all three. The people around them had to push them where to go to make sure they didn’t run into walls or whatever else was near to them.
After the offering was made at one of the houses, the lady
of the house turned to Dance Master and I and quickly painted a bindi on each
of us. I have never been offered a bindi in this fashion before, so I was so excited, except of course I was sweating so much that mine instantly started to drip
with the sweat so it ended up looking like I was bleeding from my forehead but
whatever. I have come to expect nothing less from my overactive sweat glands. I
really hope they calm down once I am out of this climate because if not, I’m
going to be super embarrassed about it. She had us come in for a minute, her
kids were giggling at us, it was very authentic and very kind.
Anyway, back to the processional. IT WAS SO COOL! Ever since I got here, I’ve been saying that I wish we were able to attend
traditional ceremonies. There is no rule against that but we usually can’t since they mostly take place a night and we can't leave the campus after dark.
SO—at least one more Indian bucket list item was checked off today. Hopefully that won’t be the
only ceremony I attend in my time here. It was simply fascinating. Sometimes I
wonder if I should of gotten some sort of degree in anthropology. I absolutely
love learning about and observing all the different ways people live life. It
is amazing to me how many similarities we all have, they just usually come in
slightly different forms that unless you are paying close attention to them, you wouldn’t
necessarily catch it. Ill have to see if I can get some of my videos to load--I've been having issues with uploading those lately.
