Today we boarded our bus into the center city of Mumbai not knowing what to expect. The media and stereotypes prepared
us to witness run down homes and sad faces. Instead we saw
residents dancing joyously with beaming smiles.
This happiness and welcoming feeling the locals brought to us is not an
experience one can obtain living in New York.
Within moments of exiting our
bus, individuals wearing paint, which covered every inch of their entire body
and face, approached us. Today was Holi, a Hindu celebration of the slaying of the Buffalo
Demon. Because of this holiday, almost
every person was painted entirely from head to toe with a multitude of
different colored chalks. People greeted us, as they swiped colorful powder all over each of our faces. Throughout the day many more people smeared
our faces with color. They were all very friendly in their
approach and seemed excited to be celebrating this holiday with a group of
foreigners. An even crazier moment of this day for us was when we were ambushed
by some of Krishna's friends, who proceeded to dunk our bodies in more colorful powder. At
this point our entire bodies and faces were covered in different colors.
Everyone was laughing and having a great time.
This
celebration showed everyone how joyful people can be. The Hindus turned a death
of the buffalo demon into a celebration where everyone is covered in bright, happy color. Everyone was nice to
enough to greet strangers with a huge amount of respect and make them feel
comfortable. This phrase "Happy Holi!" was repeated again and again by the same people who
were embracing us with their bear hugs and firm handshakes almost every time we
walked down a street. This was a culture shock for us because it was so
different from the Mind Your Own Business( MYOB) attitude in New York City.
Although we spent a fair amount of
time celebrating Holi Day, we also enjoyed other parts of Mumbai. We visited an intricate temple, which housed a fire in which everyone could
burn coconuts. This act symbolizes discarding the unwanted things in life. To
enter this temple, we had to remove our shoes, which was another instance of
the change in culture for us. We also experienced the internationally renowned
Indian food in a restaurant during our lunch.
We tasted an assortment of different Indian sauces that were dipped on
to the top of our delicious roti and naan breads. The lunch, we all agreed, was very delicious and quite the experience. Finally, we fed green grass
to the cows at a local cow shelter while inhaling the refreshing scent of fresh cow
dung. The cows seemed very happy to be
given the green grass and we especially enjoyed feeding it to the baby cows.
Cows are very important to the Indian culture because they are sacred to the
Hindu religion. This is why there are so many cows in the city.
After this exhausting but exciting
day, we reflected on our journey through Mumbai. We discussed the amazing smell
of spices, the sound of happy music, and the thick clouds of colored powder in the air.
- Ryan and Patrick
