Nashville Deepavali!!!

This was my 4th Diwali in Nashville. This time the celebrations went beyond Diwali day. Since Diwali was on Tuesday, the fire crackers were organized on next Saturday so as everybody could participate.

The Sri Ganesha Temple of Nashville is a well known destination of many Indians in central America. The Temple is only 5 minutes walk from my place but still we don't visit the temple that often. In fact we visit the temple on special occasions only (birthdays and festivals). This time it was Diwali, 28 Oct 2008. We went to the temple but it looked quite silent that day. We looked at the notice board inside the temple and there were no notice about Diwali celebration. We did our prayers and came home. Turned on the lights in the patio. Cooked and ate dinner. That's it, that was all we did for Diwali.

Next day, our neighbour (Mr. S) knocked on the door. He got some Diwali sweets which his wife had made at home. Mr. S mentioned that they looked at the lights in the living room from outside yesterday and they were off. So he assumed there was no one at home and hence did not come in to wish happy Diwali. I told him we were at home must be sitting in the living room watching some video on the laptop. There was not much to do for Diwali so we just stayed inside home. Well we missed a lot for Diwali but we were lucky we still got home made sweets. The sweets were really good.

Then on Thursday one of the colleagues mentioned that the Diwali celebration will be done in the temple on Saturday, 1 Nov 2008. There will be Laxmi pooja and fire crackers as part of celebration. As soon as I heard that an excitement ran trough my body. Hurrayyyyy, we will be celebrating Diwali in a traditional way. Better late than never. The celebration extended when another colleague Mr. K invited everybody for a lunch to celebrate his wife and 6 month old daughters home coming from India. So no work, no cooking, only celebration on the 1st Nov.

I woke up at 11:00 AM on Sat. The lunch time was 1:00 PM. As it was weekend we roommates would be slow to get out from bed, chit chat, watch videos, some movie or some TV show. So the time we got ready it was 2:00PM. I had to pickup some friends from other location. I did that in the time my roommates were getting ready. So finally we reached Mr. K's house at 2:30 PM. As I entered the house, I could feel the nice smell of food entering my nose passing all the veins and giving indication to my growling stomach that the food is coming in soon.

It was all Jain food but the food was really really good. My fascination for food kept me go on eating for about 2 hours. I was so full I was hardly able to breathe and I knew this is not good for health. Mrs K's cooking is so fantastic that I could not resist myself from eating such nice Indian food after a long time and I knew there is no surety when will be the next time I will get such nice food, so I kept going. Mrs. K is such a sweet lady, she was so happy I'm eating so much :).

When everybody finished eating of course except me, we had to find something to pass some time before we go to the temple for Diwali celebration. The unanimous decision was all time favorite "dumb charades". We had lots of fun and laughter playing the game. Foolish, imaginary, hilarious actions and reactions from everybody.

Then in the evening around 7:00 PM we headed out for temple. Everybody did there prayers and came out in the parking area for fire cracker bursting (of course there was no parking allowed in the parking area that day :)). I was very excited to burst some crackers. Well I'm an anti-crackers kind of guy. Its been a long time when I bursted any cracker in India. This time I was in US and in the back of my mind I was thinking that whatever pollution will happen will be in US and not in India so I cared less. I did know that this would will still add to global warming but that thought did not stop me from doing some pollution in US.

Once we finished all the crackers we bought, everybody started feeling hungry (not me :)). It was about 9:00 PM. The temple was serving dinner for $5.00. Everybody was delighted to have dinner in the temple. It was 2 in 1, prasad as well as a delicious dinner. Everybody finished there dinner and we walked back to house all smiles. It was definitely an eventful and exciting Diwali but I still missed being at home.

Global perception about India

Last night, I was watching the reality show "Amazing Race" on TV. This time the race went to Delhi, India. As soon as the contestants came to know that they have to go to Delhi, the first thing they had to say were: "It's going to be hot", "It's going to be crowded", "I had not been to India, I hope it's going to be fun".

When they reached India there reaction were: "How do I get out of Airport, I'm stuck here", "Taxi-Taxi, Do you know where is Moonlight motors in GK (The guy just said yes, but he was lost later on)", "Man! the traffic is so bad", "The roads are so crowded", "Everybody is in a car and blowing horns".

The Moonlight motors was a very small shop in a very small street of Greater Kailash. Many of the contestants went around and around before they reached there first destination. During there journey what was shown on the show was blocked roads due to construction, cattle hovering on the roads and not to forget people staring at the contestants (especially girls, and everybody knows why) as they were seeking help. One of the girl even mentioned that I'm not going to change what I'm wearing, because I'm comfortable in what I'm wearing.

Last but not the least (and this is the funny one), in one of the rounds contestants had to go to a wedding, create a garland of Indian currency and give it to the groom. The money on the Garland should be exactly Rs. 780 and should include notes of all denominations. The team of 2 had to squeeze through the dancing baraat into the banquet hall. Once they reached inside they realized they have to get notes of different denominations. So they were scared to come out through the baraat, but they had no choice. Finally when garland finished, they went inside the banquet hall to hunt for the groom. I was rolling on the floor when I saw they were asking every men on the floor "Are you the groom?", "Are you the groom?". Of course they found the real groom at the end.

"Cambodia was 4 times better than India". This is what one of the other contestant had to say while he was travelling towards Moonlight motors. Frankly speaking I did not enjoy the perception I saw and I just hope this perception will change in coming future. It's not somebody who can do it, it's everybody who have to do it.