Our 1st Festival

The 8th February saw our first celebration of a Hindu festival - a celebration to the Goddess Saraswathi - who is the goddess of knowledge & education. Predominantly a Bengali celebration but celebrated quite widely throughout schools. One of the rooms at work was converted into a shrine - with much decoration undertaken during the previous day.  Everyone came in their best dress and some colleagues made sure I didn't embarrass myself, by bringing in a sari, jewelery and make up for me! I was told to 'walk slowly' - good advice for any would-be sari wearers!  A 'poojan' (worship) took place in the morning, with parents, staff, invited guests and the students participating. A statue of the goddess was decorated with flowers and offerings of food and educational materials made to her. All of us took turns to hold the flaming lamp to seek her blessing. I won't pretend that I understood all that was going on, but it was a great shared experience. Afterwards a sharing of the food items took place - fruit and sweets and later lunch for everyone. People came and went throughout the day to show their respects.

The following day a more small scale worship continued, I was working in an adjoining room and the flame of the lamp seemed to get rather large and the smoke was more than I could cope with - so I sought refuge elsewhere! At the end of the working day there was a final act of worship at the end of which the statue of the goddess was taken to the car and was taken to the Yamuna river, where she floated off.

Daniel was very delayed home from work that evening, having got waylayed by the traffic of everyone else taking their idols to the river too!