Festivals Part 3: Chhath छठ

Chhath is a holiday unique to Bihar, and it occurs a few days after Diwali (again, Wikipedia for the details). The main events occur over three days, and even though I didn't have much time, I was super lucky because Rashmi, one of our PAs, invited me to join her and her family for some of the festival, which was fabulous. Many people here take at least a week off (between Diwali on the 5th and the start of Chhath on the 11th), and travel to their native places to stay with family. 

Festivals Part 2: Birthday Week

Jeff and I have a glorious tradition called "Birthday Week," in which during the week prior to your birthday, you get spoiled rotten, with lots of little treats and lots of doing nothing while the other person takes care of you. I think it's a marvelous institution that we'll hopefully be able to keep going indefinitely.

Festivals Part 1: Diwali (दीवाली)

Prelude: Jeff and I are en route to Chennai, where we'll have the winter RA Meet before we head off for a week of vacation with my dad in Nepal. I'm writing up a series of  three posts about the happenings in the past few weeks, before the memories all get muddled by our vacation.

Festivals are a big deal here. I can't count how many times our PAs have excitedly told us about the special puja (worship) that I've never heard of being done that day in honor of a wide variety of purposes, frequently involving fasting (and often fasting being done exclusively by women, wives for husbands and sisters for brothers). However, even in the US I'd heard of Diwali. Wikipedia it for the details, but its effective tagline is that it's the "festival of lights." I was told that it's treated similarly to Christmas, as gifts are often exchanged among friends and family. It's such a significant shopping event that most businesses mark the start of their financial year with Diwali, and the period surrounding it is considered the holiday season, much like Christmas.

The streets are filled with puppies

You know when you're a kid and you fantasize about a magical world where everything you love exists in infinitely large quantities? That's a little how Patna feels right now, since it is positively brimming with puppies. Of course there's a rational side of my brain that acknowledges that puppies carry disease and dogs shouldn't be reproducing so rapidly, but oh my goodness they are so cute!

Bihar Ass Time

The Bihar elections have been going on since October 21st, and will continue until November 20th, and on Monday they hit Patna. The city went into lockdown: the military sealed the borders and let no one in or out, and no cars or autorickshaws were allowed on the roads. This meant that besides bicycles and Election Commission jeeps, the streets were effectively empty of vehicles, which in Patna is pretty eerie. Lots of soldiers and policemen with long rifles roaming everywhere though, and also quite a few youth with neon vests that said "Civil Security"; I think some police just gave these guys Rs 100 and a vest and said "go make sure everyone behaves nicely". After election day the police and media claimed victory in keeping the polls secure, with the front-page story of the Times of India opening with the following statement: "Barring an incident of blast by Maoists in the jungle of Jamui and two explosions on the outskirts of Patna, peaceful polling marked the fourth phase of the Bihar assembly elections."

Election Season

On our morning walk with Lalu today, Jeff and I passed an elementary school that's being used as a polling station. Today is the Phase 4 election date, which covers a good chunk of southeast Bihar and small sections of Patna city, including, as it turns out, our neighborhood. We realized that it was a polling station because there was a security guard in camouflage holding an enormous gun outside it, which isn't typical at this elementary school.