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Last week was the first festival in Bombay since we have been back in India. The festival is called Dahi Handi and is celebrated in honor of the god krishna who was apparently very mischievous as a kid: aren't most gods? Groups from all over the city compete by building human pyramids, sometimes even 6 people high. Once in the pyramid, the people will stand so each of the 6 tiers of people is standing full height with someone else on their shoulders.
Last year on the day of the festival it was raining pretty hard and we were only able to see some of the pyramids from a rickshaw. We were a little timid about getting out in the rain and taking some photos, we said, "there's always next year."
The day begins by people packed densely into the backs of trucks or on the tops of buses coming into the city cheering and yelling. They land at spots throughout the city organized by local politicians. The spots have a stage where the politicians and panel of "judges" sit along with photo and video crews. Some of the spots are small, but some are quite large gathering together thousands of people.
We decided to walk down to one spot not far from our house to take some photos. We stayed on the periphery until we were spotted and asked by a guy if we would like to get a better view from the stage. We were a little reluctant but eventually said yes. Seth went up on stage and grouped up along with the other media photographers. After a few minutes we noticed that the gentleman on the microphone motioned for both of us and asked our names. This led to us being introduced to the hundreds of local onlookers as well as given one rose each. We humbly accepted the nice flowers while being posed for photographs and tried to play it "cool" even though we were quite embarrassed. Seth finished taking a few more photographs and we diplomatically left the stage.
Later that day we made it to another festival gathering. This one was about twice the size as the one before and we're pretty sure was sponsored by a rival political party. Again, someone volunteered to take us to the stage for a "better view." How could we pass up another great opportunity for a closer look, you ask? Well, I'll tell you: we knew — from previous experience — this was just a ploy to get the couple who obviously don't belong and put them on stage, where they can effectively become the center of attention for what seems like hours.
Of course we did go up on stage again; it is a better view for your information. This time they introduced us to the crowd as, "Mr. Seth and Mrs. Hannah." The gentleman on the microphone also felt it was necessary to say a few more things about us in a language we don't understand while the crowd cheered and laughed. We were offered chai to drink and the thrones to sit in. Again we were posed for photographs but this time we were actually handed one of the prizes to give away! Unbelievable! We may as well have been asked to throw the first pitch at a baseball game or something.
All this to say this was our year to not only take some photos of the Dahi Handi festival but participate as well. And it didn't rain.
