Signs of a Festival

It's been a week of festivals here in Orissa, and I admit I still am trying to find out just how all the traditions began. The fundamental answer I receive is "Lord Krishna," or "Radha and Krishna." Wonderful. Similar to asking how the tradition of Christmas began, and hearing the answer "Jesus Christ." Yes, thank you, I've heard of Him, but can you explain to me why groups of six men from the eight surrounding villages are carrying around extremely heavy chariots with flowers, bananas, coconuts, lights, candles, and small clay vessels with clarified butter burning inside? With mini-statues of different Hindu deities inside of the chariots? Whilst risking their lives sliding down river banks and loading all eight chariots, all the men, and the accompanying musicians, into boats and crossing a river (this happening just one night of the festival) and otherwise parading into each of the joining villages every other night? How ever did this begin?

One day during this week of festivities is called Holi, where people spend the morning and early afternoon chasing each other around and spreading bright colored powder all over the place. The people in some of the surrounding villages tend to get pretty crazy (drunk), so we limit our play to the hospital and early on in the day inside the village. No one is immune to the colorful play; not the elderly (as seen in the Bapa photo), not even the livestock (note the cow).

The chariot came to the hospital the other day, some blessings were given, some holy food prepared (rice, bananas, coconuts, yogurt, grapes, cucumber, clarified butter, all mixed together and handed out by the priest), brief music played, and then it stayed parked in front for a good eight hours.

To the north of Juanga there's small temple by a banyan tree that some people had visited and done what looked to be a unique worship ritual, involving laying their staffs (from herding something) next to clay vessels filled with milk and offerings of their labors, then covered in red cloths. When I asked about this particular rite, the answer I got was "This is the water buffalo people."

I continue to be humbled by the constant revelation of systems and organization in this special, foreign place that so often, on first or second glance, seems to me a sea of chaos. If not chaos, then at least a myriad of unrecognizable traditions and ways of going about life.

But then I sit on the floor with Bapa to drink some tea, or help a patient walk from her bed to the bathroom, and I remember that the basic human systems are familiar everywhere, between everyone, whether we herd water buffalo or catalog library books. And God bless the herders and librarians of the world.