Making light

A Blessed Diwali to All !

Sweets on the street
Leh, Ladakh
There aren't many Hindus here in Ladakh. Just a few shopkeepers (sweet shop and general store owners mostly), and men in the Army. The only Hindu temples are rather garish, brand-spanking-new concrete ones created to serve the Army men. They are painted bright comic-book colours and look jarring against the sombre grey landscape with its white-washed Buddhist chortens and occasional onion-domed mosques.

Where there are Hindus, though, there is colour, festivity and lots of sugar, and Leh is no exception. Today is Diwali, a festival of light, the most universally-observed Hindu holiday that is also honoured by Sikhs, Jains and anyone with a general sense of fun. (It's actually a series of days...but that kind of gets lost up here).

Yesterday many shops were closed, but sweets vendors had opened special stalls making fresh jalebis in the open-air cold, and displaying all manner of fancy boxed milky Indian confections. Stationers sell tinsely garlands and ropes of plastic flowers (since real ones aren't available here in the cold season). And print icons of the goddess Lakshmi, usually accompanied by Ganesh and Saraswati, beam benevolently from every corner.

(The photos on this page are taken from various past celebrations in Nepal and Kerala.)

Timing is everything
It wasn't easy to find a solid meal in town yesterday. I had a steaming bowl of vegetable thukpa (Tibetan noodle soup, 30Rs) with lots of cilantro in the tiny, gloomy Tibet Restaurant as dusk gathered. Across the room huddled a group of four British girls, who had clearly just arrived in Leh. They were warming their hands round cups of tea, nibbling naan and poring over their Lonely Planet guides. (The Lonely Planet section on Ladakh is terrible. Most everything in it is wrong. More about that later.)

I almost felt sorry for them. Why had they arrived so late in the season? Just a few weeks ago, the gold and copper leaves were sparkling like amber in the fall afternoons. Now the rows of flaming poplars are grey skeletons, though skies are still blue.

"Hi!" piped up one of them. "Would you like to join us?"

I pulled up a chair. "Have you just arrived?" I asked, out of politeness but completely unnecessarily.

Turns out they have been in India for six weeks, and already "done" Kerala, Mumbai and Rajasthan.

"We really wanted to see the Himalayas," said one, "even though obviously the timing isn't right...." Another one sneezed and asked the Tibetan Amala for a napkin.

As I heard their itinerary, I realised they had done everything backwards. Had they only reversed their schedule and done Ladakh six weeks ago, *then* headed southward for Rajasthan (which is just now in its best season) and eventually to Kerala in late November, they would have missed the Kerala monsoon rains (which they caught instead) and seen Ladakh in its full fall blaze and the end of harvest celebrations.

Just a little bit of research makes all the difference in your trip. India (and Nepal) covers a vast area, none of it uniform in weather or landscape. Going to a particular place at the right or wrong time can very simply determine whether it's miserable or magical. Earlier this September, I met a Dutch couple who had somehow been convinced to travel to Rajasthan for a camel safari...in mid-August.

Needless to say, the desert was scorching hot at that time. Some travel company had talked them into it.

And last August, a dear friend (who shall remain nameless) and I met up in Kathmandu. He eagerly asked where he could see "the mountains." Which mountains? He looked impatient. "The Himalayas, of course." I had to break the news to him.

He had managed to arrive at the absolute worst season for viewing. Unless you take a plane - and maybe even if you do - you will see no snowcapped Himalayas until second week of October. Most of the country is blanketed in monsoon clouds during summer. Then he admitted, "I didn't do any research before my trip."

I met a new friend at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu this past summer. She desperately wanted to get out of Kathmandu and do some trekking. She too had arrived at the worst time - not only are the views concealed by clouds, but the trails are full of leeches during the wet season. She was actually in Nepal at the ideal time to be in Ladakh - summer. If she had reversed her trip and gone to India first, then Nepal, she could have landed up in the Mountain Kingdom's spectacular viewing weather (October-December).

Timing is everything. After seeing so man ill-timed disappointed travellers, I can recommend consulting the guidebook under the "When To Go" heading, check the weather on an internet site like Weather Underground (link at sidebar on left), and prioritize accordingly!

Blue skies, burnt out

Substandard subtitle
Kathmandu, Nepal

I'm officially burned out. Between the requisite appearances and celebrations of the holiday season, lots of late nights in crowded temple squares trying to photograph masked gods, lots of pilgrimages to holy sites of all stripes, and all the immigration rigamarole (which finally resolved - guess I need to do a thanksgiving puja now) I just do not feel creative. Actually I have been creating and documenting things all along, and now, just have no energy to upload and share them!

So here are just a few photos. About 10 days ago, I took a walk with my friend Jessamine down to Pashupati Temple.

This Brahmin pujari (ritual priest) in the photo is preparing offerings of rice balls, bananas, incense and so on for a memorial ceremony or shraddhanjali.

Pashupati temple is one of the most sacred in Hinduism, the most sacred in Nepal and seat of the national patron deity Pashupatinath (lord of the beasts, a manifestation of Shiva). This temple is the most prominent place to be cremated (here on the Bagmati River) or to hold the required memorial pujas for loved ones and family members.There is a special place just up the river bank for cremation of nobility. At the time of the 2001 Royal Massacre, there were so many royal bodies that special ghats (body platforms) had to be built just to accomodate all the cremations.

These are traditionally-dressed Nepali ladies (probably from the Gurung or Tamang ethnic group) worshipping the lingam, or sacred symbolic phallus, of Kirateshwor Mahadev, a manifestation of Shiva. The Kirateshwor temple is at the top of a flight of stone steps near Pashupati temple, but unlike Pashupati is open to foreigners and non-Hindus. The copper vessel hanging over the lingam is filled with holy water and "bathes" it continually.

This lingam-stone appears to be naturally formed, but someone has carved an OM symbol on it.

What looks like little stone bunnies next to the lingam are Nandis. They represent Lord Shiva's animal vehicle of choice, or vahana. Murugan rides on a peacock, Durga on a lion, Saraswati on a swan, and for some reason, Shiva chose a bullock. I guess he wasn't in a hurry.


The people in the next photo are Newaris, worshipping on Kartik Purnima - the special full moon that just passed on Sunday - at the Chobar Temple just outside Kathmandu. Like an amazing number of Nepali temples, Chobar has both Hindu and Buddhist deities. The Newaris have a special festival just for this full moon (actually they have a special festival for everything). It represents a unique opportunity for the women of the community.

If there are Newari couples who have separated or had disagreements over the past year, the women can come and offer five days' puja service at the temple. That means, they have to fast, ritually bathe every morning in the river, and not let anyone touch them, as they perform the pujas for the god. This year, there were about 41 women doing this sort of service at the Chobar temple.

At the end of the five days, the woman's husband can either come to "claim" her again, or leave her there. If he does not come, the woman is free to remarry with another person. Since divorce is rare and highly frowned upon in this society I wondered if there was any stigma on these women. My Newari companion told me that lots of them do remarry, also rare in this part of Asia. I wonder how many women secretly or not-so-secretly hope that the husband will not come for them!

Before I go completely supernova, I think I might head for Pokhara, the lazy hangout spot, for a few days. We have a new peace agreement - the Maoists get a "piece" of everything! And you thought The King (Mr Ten Percent) was bad. Maoists are still effectively running 80 percent of the country and hitting up local people for donations and accomodation. But there haven't been many strikes lately. In fact I had gotten so used to using "strike" as an excuse for being late, now I am disappointed at having to arrive in a timely fashion.

Here is a peaceful, contemplative image of a giant Buddha statue, from the entrance to Swayambunath Stupa. Funny how getting these peaceful, spiritual images is so much work, I just feel dirty and tired and gritty and exhausted by the time I get home. Someone needs to make a t-shirt: "Spirituality Is Not Pretty."

Diwali walli* goes Nepali

Festivus maximus
Kathmandu and Lalitpur, Nepal

*Wallah: someone who is particularly expert at or specializes in a certain activity or profession. Walli: feminine of Wallah.

Everything happens at once, all the time, here. We're now in the middle of yet another cluster of festival days. This one is Diwali, aka Tihar, the Hindu festival of lights and Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and abundance. Some things are closed, some are open for business, many look deceptively open yet are operating on skeleton crew.

Naturally, all government offices are closed. In fact, I think they were literally closed more days than they were open this month.

Bunches of dressed-up, beaming people roam the streets, butter-lamps are lit at in doorways at dusk, children make the rounds singing and drumming deusi-bailo (a sort of Newari trick-or-treating from door to door) in the evenings. Every home and shop has a rangoli (sort of mandala-design invitation to the goddess, painted with cow dung, coloured powder, lamps and flower petals) at the front door - a painted pathway to guide Lakshmi as she enters to bless the residence. Everywhere you can hear the sounds of ringing puja bells, and Newari panchbhaje bands go from door to door playing their distinctive, reedy ceremonial music. A few months ago I wrote about the snake holiday (Naag Panchami). I can really hear the snake spirit in the sounds of the long, narrow Newari horns.

New Newaris
Today I am rushing to get some prints made for Pramochan, one of the (the many) Newari masked dancers I photographed this past Dasain season. On Dasain day, I received tikka and jamara (red powder on the forehead and sprigs of barley behind the ear) from Pramochan's father. Tikka and jamara are a sort of blessing given from elders to juniors on Dasain day. So, Pramochan's familiy (all five of whom live in a traditional Nepali wooden house, which looks like a hayloft with a five-foot ceiling) have invited me to Mha Puja. (Yet another puja!)

I love the tradition of jamara, which is (as far as I know) unique to Nepal. On the first day of Dasain, the lady of the house plants seeds of barley, rice or corn, in a bed of sand, in a special niche inside the home. The seeds are then covered and allowed to sprout secretly in warmth and darkness. It's during these nine days that the goddess Durga is symbolically fighting evil. On the tenth day, Vijaya Dashami, the jamara is uncovered and revealed to have grown into long, bright green grassy stalks. The stalks are then ritually harvested and bestowed upon juniors by the family elders.

Everyone walks around town with an enormous red dot (made of red kumkum powder, rice and yogurt) on their foreheads and chartreuse sprigs sprouting from their hair like feathers (see photo below). Nepalis absolutely love tikka and jamara ("sooooo beauty-full") and seemed very proud to be seen with me, once I was properly marked.

Today's festivity, Mha Puja, is done only by the Newari community on the occasion of Newari New Year (it's now 1126). This ceremony honours and blesses the individual's body for the coming year. Fortunately I have a Newari and Nepali interpreter and hope to find out more about it. I am bringing the prints as a present for the family. (Others might get away with bringing a box of sweets, but as a foreigner with a digital camera, I am honour-bound to provide free prints to the family. I think it's a tradeoff for the stigma they might otherwise receive of associating with a foreigner.)

Rituals in transfigured time
Here in Nepal, we are running three simultaneous calendars. The business calendar is (sort of) the "English" or Gregorian calendar. Then there's the Vikram Sambat or Nepali Hindu calendar, in which it's 2063 and the new year is in April. It is quite common for buildings to boast of having been "established in 2059" (my Australian friend Dave took a photo of this - he thought it was a typo), or for people to say "the conference will begin after 10 Bhadra."

When yet another time cycle, the Newari calendar, starts tomorrow, and it will be 1127. The Newari new year is figured from our AD 867, when legend has it that a Newari Jyapu (farmer caste) discovered a riverbed of gold, and thus paid off everyone's debts. A good way to make a fresh start.

Now if I could just make some money and pay off a few of my debts...guess I will be offering Lakshmi extra marigolds and butter lamps for that one.

New widgets on the block!
Feeds, widgets, clusters, tags, bookmarklets, clouds, sprinkles, aggregators, badges. I'm just now learning about the galaxy of nifty blog features and how they procreate.

I've added a couple of new widgets (nifty code dropped into my template to do cool things) to the blog site. The SirenLocator Map (requires Flash, I think) should show online viewers as they appear, and even reveal a map of their nation (for those unclear on geography).

Scroll down and you will find the Current Moon Phase, essential for life in Nepal and other parts of Asia.

My SirenDelicious feed shows my favourite items and headlines saved to Del.icio.us. And Global Voices headlines feed show selected headers from the Nepali and Indian blogosphere.

Coming soon: my very own tag cloud, and a Newsvine widget. Oh, and I've finally caught up and gotten myself a YouTube account, but some stupid folk singer already snatched the name Sirensongs....so SirenTV will be appearing as "SirensongsIndia." Maybe someday I'll figure out how to upload my many videos directly to this site.