Happy Vishu/Easter
Friday, in addition to being Good Friday, a big
deal for all the Kerala Christians, was also Vishu, a big Hindu
holiday.
Combined, these holidays, including Easter today,
make for a long holiday weekend. Many places started shutting down on Thursday
and won't open again until Monday. My first clue that something was going on was
going on was Thursday night. After spending a frustrating hour at Maya's
Internet place unable to connect my computer (this is the first place I found,
several weeks back, where I had been able to reliably connect), I gave up. I
needed to send an attachment to the department assistant at USF, so she could
print on letterhead a recommendation letter out for a student who was applying
last minute for a job. When I couldn't get my computer connected, I decided I
would log on to one of the PCs and use my USB memory stick to transfer the
attachment to the PC and then mail it. By now, I wasn't really frustrated, just
sort of amused. It turned out that of the two PCs operating in this particular
Internet shop, only one had a USB port. For some unknown reason, the computer
with the USB port was not getting an Internet
connection.
This is pertinent to Vishu
because I decided I would wait until later when the kids were in bed to go out
to the other Internet place, slightly further afield, where I had been able to
connect reliably. I got a rickshaw just outside our flat, but as it approached
the railway crossing a few kilometers away, the gates began closing. I told the
driver I'd get out and walk across the tracks and get another rickshaw on the
other side. Instead I wound up walking the last couple kilometers to the place.
On the way, I noticed that the firecrackers we heard going off near our flat
were not isolated. The entire area was ablaze with firecrackers and fireworks.
Families were on their porches setting off small fireworks one at a time.
I got to the Internet place and wasn't
surprised it was closed, since I sensed that the surrounding events must be
something special. The next morning, on the way to the train station at 9:30,
everything was shut down and there was virtually no traffic along a stretch that
is usually teeming with cars, buses and trucks. We knew it was Good Friday, but
it didn't seem right that the whole city would be quiet on account of a day
recognized only by Kerala's Christians. It also didn't seem to make sense that
people would have been setting off fireworks in recognition of Good
Friday.
Eventually we figured out that
Friday was Vishu, a holiday recognizing Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Families
light fireworks the night before, and some continue setting them off until
sunrise Friday, when it is said to be good luck if the family is visited by
Lakshmi.
Friday afternoon, when we
drove along a stretch of churches leading up to Wild Palms, it was impressive to
see all the Christian sitting outside the churches, queuing to get inside for
mass.
The other news from Saturday was
that there were more bombings--a serious one in Jammu and two minor ones, with
no fatalities, in Delhi. The man at Wild Palms who told us about it, when he saw
our moderate amount of concern, explained that it was very minor and of no
concern. This seems to be how Indians deal with bombings. It's a fact of life.
Perhaps with such a large population, people feel either (a) as if the odds of
them personally ever being in the vicinity of a bomb are small, or (b) as if a
few deaths here and there, in a country of more than a billion, is no big
deal.
Except for reading the paper on
Saturday, we've been pretty much out of the loop in terms of local or global
news. We don't get a paper delivered here like we did at Aswathy Gardens, and
without the Internet our link to U.S. news sources is
nonexistent.
Today is Easter. Our
landlord, who is Christian, asked us last week if we were going to a Good Friday
mass. Then he said that he didn't know of any English masses. So I used that as
an excuse to tell him we wouldn't be attending mass. We'll be observing Easter
in the flat by going swimming, having lunch and naps, going swimming again,
having dinner, and then going to bed.
Posted: Sat
- April 15, 2006 at 08:36 PM