G.W.C. Pt. Deux

Well we ended up shooting off fireworks for a couple hours with the rugrats then made our way home to the good ol' Hotel Maria. Where as luck would have it, there was another celebration happening across the street. The speakers were blaring Bollywood music and everyone, and I do mean everyone, was in good spirits. More fireworks were lit and there was much dancing and merriment to be had. If merriment were food we could have fed nations.
The two things I don't think I can overstate enough are the amount of people celebrating and the noise level. Literally you couldn't walk more than thirty feet without running into a pandal (A temporary shrine to Kali, some of which were 4 ft. tall with one statue, some of which were 60 ft. tall with up to twelve statues) where speakers were set up playing as loud as they possibly could. And each pandal that you came to was playing a different song. It was irresistable at times to break into dance as we were walking home. The only thing was, we had to switch the dance every thirty feet or so. So we danced until about 11 o'clock or until I thought I was going to pass out right where I stood from pure exhaustion from the days festivities and made our way back up to our room. I hadn't been laying in bed for more than 5 seconds when a wall shaking, "BOOOOOM!" was heard seemingly directly outside our window. Ah, more fireworks. It actually sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone with nothing to do but wait out the falling bombs. Accompanying the fireworks in a similar fashion that a cow with a bell tied around it's neck accompanies a concert violinist was the drone of atleast 8 different pandal's music. We hit the lights off but for some reason our room remained illuminated like it was the middle of the day. I toggled the switch back and forth trying to make sense of this conundrum when it hit me like a ton of bricks, this is the Celebration of Lights. It seemed as though every light in the city was on except for ours. Imagine a "Home Improvement" christmas special and Tim Allan's lights on every building. There were quite a few people actually wearing sunglasses outside, and for good reason.
The blasts continued for a while and I was able to turn them into some sort of African drumming in my head but every once in a while I'd be interupted by a giant explosion directly outside our window. It got to the point where it was truly comical how ridiculous it seemed. I'd be teetering on the edge of being asleep when "BOOOOM!" I'd be dead awake again. The girls and I could do nothing but laugh about our sleepless situation and ended up staying awake until about 5:30 in the morning when the festivities finally died down.

The next day marked the end of Kali Puja, when devout Hindu people break down the shrines and march their statues to the Ganges river to send them to the bottom of the holy water. It's a beautiful sight to see. Marching drum lines and children's classes, truckloads of people, and vendors selling balloons and high pitched whistles. All to ceremoniously throw thousands of statues, some over ten feet tall, into the river. These statues, much like the pandals that they sit in, take weeks, sometimes months to make and as a sign that their work is not their own the people get rid of them and start all over for the next puja, usually only a few weeks away. People were painted in purple and red dust and joy resounded through the streets. Emily and I made the short walk from Daya Dan to the local Ghat and found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful celebration. It was really an incredible thing to see with truck after truck backing up to the edge of the street, unloading a giant statue into groups of mens arms, shouting praises, then walking it to the water and tossing it in, never to be seen again.

Ah Kolkata, you never cease to amaze.

Namaste,
Heath