Ayudha Puja

I mentioned Ayudha Puja last year, but it's worth revisiting. This year, we went to attend the group puja of a bunch of vehicles at one of the multi-family-residences. As it turns out, I parked in the wrong place... so I was invited to get my car puja'd as well. SCORE!

The puja (or pooja) is a multi step blessing process. First the vehicles (or tools) are cleaned. Then they are sprinkled with turmeric powder and kumkuma powder (also turmeric, just mixed with slaked lime which makes it change color) and palm leaves/flower leis are tied on.

Next, offerings of puffed rice and fruit are placed in front of the vehicle. Camphor is placed on top of an ash gourd and coconut, lit on fire, and the smoke is wafted around the blessed items. The gourd and coconut are then smashed open in the street (and left for passing animals).

Finally, a lemon is placed under each wheel (of the car) and the car drives forward, crushing them. This is said to bring good luck for the year. I like to think it means my car is now invulnerable. I wonder if I can get them to reduce my $70/year car insurance rate, in light of my car's new found power.

On a side note, everyone tells me that the minor "bang" I had yesterday was obviously because my car wasn't puja'd last year.

Chennai Holidays: Deepavali

This week's bonus holiday is courtesy of Diwali or Deepavali, the festival of light. Let me just start by saying Diwali is a BIG deal. Most cultures/religions have an Autumn holiday to celebrate the harvest, but Diwali is the biggest and most celebrated holiday for Hindus, much like Christmas for Christians (slash most of the Western world). It was prefaced with several weeks of major sales and people cleaning and decorating. Starting nearly a week before the day we started hearing random fireworks going off. The evening before the holiday they began in earnest with literally thousands (if not millions) of fireworks going off. Diwali had scattered fireworks going off all day, but was otherwise one of the quietest days we've seen in India. There was almost no traffic and relatively few people on the streets. Once night fell though... the fireworks really picked up. The attached video (definitely watch it with the sound) gives you an idea of what it was like. We are lucky that we have roof access to our building and our building is higher than most of the surrounding buildings and trees. It was literally a 360 degree firework display. Every direction and every distance there were fireworks. From street crackers, to rooftop roman candles to professional grade sky bursters(?), you could literally read a newspaper by the light of all the fireworks. I know I'm using the word literally a lot, but standing on the roof seeing that many fireworks going off is... well, indescribable... I did my best, but it doesn't do it justice. At one point, I saw 5 roman candles going off on 5 different rooftops at the same time and that was in one direction. Oh yeah, and it went on for hours both nights!

Edit: It is now officially 2 days after Diwali... and there are still periodic fireworks going off (at midnight)!

Chennai Holidays: Vijaya Dashami

Vijaya Dashami is the 10th and last day of Navratri. It literally means "the triumph of righteousness over evil." There are a ton of stories of various sinister demons and deities being defeated on this day. Hindus celebrate with parties, gift giving, and prayers for the upcoming harvest season. It is the beginning of a very festive season around here, as we get ready for Deepvali!

Chennai Holidays: Mahatma Gandhi’s Birthday and Ayutha Puja

Today is a 'twofer' on the local holiday front. Mahatma Gandhi (who is kind of a big deal around here) was born on October 2, 1869 and it is also the Ayutha Puja, which falls on a different day each year (depending on the moon). I'm going to focus on Ayutha Puja, because I think most people are familiar with Gandhi. Though I will say, "Gandhi Day" is one of the biggest holidays here. It is one of the three government mandated holidays, so everyone (including most retail/food employees) gets it off.

Ayutha Puja is the 9th day of the Navratri festival. It is a celebration of tools and weapons. Tools are blessed, placed on pedestals, and worshiped. Vehicles are washed and blessed as well. I know the GSO spent some time observing blessings over various consulate equipment, and many personal drivers for consulate employees are blessing the cars they drive. We don't currently have a driver, and our all-arounder is Christian, so I think we will have to go without. It would have been an interesting event to observe, but maybe next year.

Around Chennai: Weekend trip to Kanchipuram

Chennai isn't really known for its weekend getaways. In fact, we rarely hear about anything other than Pondicherry (Puducherry). Well... in an effort to break the mold, we took advantage of our long weekend to leisurely see the nearby town of Kanchipuram. 

Kanchipuram is about 100 minutes away by car (at light traffic times). It's a pretty big deal among Indian tourists, because there are a lot of Hindu temples there. It's sometimes nicknamed "City of a Thousand Temples." While this may be technically true... Chennai probably also technically has 1000 temples. There are mini-temple shrines all over the place. Anyway, the temples are only open from 6-12 and 4-8, so we decided a day trip was not ideal.  

View from our hotel, the GRT Regency.

We strategically planned our drive during my son's nap. Consequentially, we arrived at a perfect time to hit the "afternoon opening times" for the temples. We started with the Varadharaja Perumal Temple.

The entrance Gopuram

Since the inner sanctum of the temple is restricted to Hindus, this temple provided a 'tourist area' where you could see the "marriage hall." The temple had a hundred pillars, each ornately carved from one stone, many with quite erotic depictions (not shown).

At the recommendation of a random fellow temple goer, we took a walk around the temple tank to see the horses.

They did not appear to be doing well.

There was a nice photo op though.

Look at that "moush" (mustache)!

We decided to walk home to take in some of the street life (rather than taking an auto). 

Brick carrying, just the way we saw it in Amazing Race!

It's great seeing construction here, because concrete and such don't come bags, rather in piles.
The guy in the yellow shirt was hauling some from the pile to the mixer.

We couldn't tell if this place sold wood, or turned it into charcoal first.
Either way, it sure looks cool!

The festival to Ganesh was in full swing, here is one of the many statues we've seen.

Car wash water

As we neared our hotel, we stumbled upon something that made the entire walk worth it. MONKEYS! This was our first monkey sighting in India, and it was just as glorious as we'd anticipated.

If you look closely, you can see the baby clinging on.

I don't know what they were advertising, but I hope it's top hats.

City of a Thousand Temples. Some are bigger than others.

Home sweet home.

The next morning, we started by hitting up the local Saravana Bhavan for breakfast (an excellent South Indian chain). After breakfast, we headed to Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple, reported to have beautiful gardens. This was the furthest temple from town. We hired an auto driver to take us round trip, but ended up hiring him by the hour for the rest of the day.

The temple dates back to the 7th century. It was originally colored using vegetable based paints. Most of the paint has worn away by now, but the small remaining sections show that it was quite intricately painted. The bright white sections are where they recently re-plastered to protect the soft sandstone of the main structure.

I should clarify... when you're told a place in India has lush gardens, what they mean is... grass... Pretty nice grass, but... just grass.

As the temples closed for their daily siesta, we checked out a couple of the local museums. The first one, Kanchi Kudil, displayed a typical farmer's housing from a hundred years ago. 

Recliner

Water-catching atrium

We continued on to the Sakunthala Jagannatham Museum of Folk Art, which was a little more extensive, though still nowhere near what we'd call a museum in the US. 

I apparently didn't take many pictures, but they had a nice collection of silks, musical instruments, paintings, sculptures, and antique tools.

It also had a good view of  a nearby Gopuram.

Both museums were also people's houses, so it was a little weird walking around. The museum sections were mostly marked off, but it was still awkward.

A note about museums here: they don't have much info in their exhibits. We expected to need hours to explore each museum, but in reality, we spent half an hour or less at each.

After our temple closing and insanely hot weather prompted siesta, we headed back out, starting with Vaikunda Perumal Temple.

Being a temple to Vishnu... pretty much every carving was of Vishnu in some situation.

Every temple you visit in Kanchipuram has "tour guides" that start showing you around pretty much immediately after you show up. This is whether you want them to... or ask them not to... or don't have money... Rs 200 is the going rate for tip (at least for Americans). It is nice to have someone to take family photos...

Elephant battle

Empty temple tank

Mohanraj was pretty much on autopilot at this point, taking us to the "must see" temples. Next up: Kamakshi Amman Temple. This temple had an elephant that would bless you for a coin. 

Gopuram - the tall pyramid on top of the entrance to Hindu temples.

I don't know why, but I love panoramics.

Last but not least, we headed to Ekambareswara Temple. This is the largest temple in Kanchipuram and also the most commercial. Having made a tactical error in forgetting to restock my wallet with money back at the hotel, we had some problems dodging tour guides and "blessing givers." (We failed, but joke was on them, I wasn't lying when I showed them my empty wallet.)

NOM NOM COCONUT

Possibly the "main event" for the temple, this is a 3500 year old mango tree. We later learned that it had actually died 9 years prior, making this a 9 year old mango tree. Since 9 is way less impressive than 3500, they still go with the latter. They do have piece of the old truck on display (of course I'm skeptical of the claim, mostly because of the internet).

                                         

We picked up a 'parcel' (read: to go) dinner on the way back to the hotel, only to find our room was being serviced. So we took a walk up to the roof garden, where we saw yet more monkeys (and hurriedly departed when one got a little too close for comfort)! 

Dinner before...

and after.

By Sunday evening, we had visited pretty much all the temples we'd planned to see. So the next morning we decided to revisit the luscious "gardens" at Kailasantha for some play time for my son, before driving home at nap time.

Nearby houses, I love the tin OVER the thatch.

We ended the trip with another 100ish minutes drive home. If I had the trip to do again (and especially without a 2 year old in tow), I'd suggest doing it with only 1 overnight. I think arriving one morning, siesta-ing during the closing time, sight seeing again in the evening, and following morning would more than cover all of the major sights - unless you wanted to take advantage of Kanchipuram's other big draw: SILKS!