The Goddess of the car-festival

Long time not posted, but there is a reason: i've been to Birur (ca. 70km from Davangere / 2hrs by train).

But first the weekend:

On Saturday Ambika (wife of Suren, the lady of the hostels) took me and the remaining boys to a nice restaurant nearby - actually i wanted to go to the vegetable market, but obviously that's again something i'll have to explore on my own - i guess they have no clue what an european might find interesting in a (smelly, crowded, etc.) market...

Sunday went well again, i went to the (catholic) church (most of the cities have catholic churces as there are quite many schools run by the catholic church, and there's a good 10% catholic minority in the country), and just arrived when a funeral started. It was quite different from a funeral here: the coffin (open, but full with flowers) and most of the family members arrived on a colourful, flower-decorated bus, and you could already hear it from quite a distance as the bus was playing some really loud (and to my ears not really sad) music. After the service the family boarded the bus again, music turned on, and went off for most likely the graveyard... And none of the family or the people in the church wore black, they were all dressed in their beautiful, colourful, richly embroidered sarees...

On the way back home i've bought some grapes, they are really tasty here, not too sweet, with no seeds. Nyamm :)))

The treating of the boys continued in the evening, we went to the cinema. I wish we didn'd. We were watching a kannada movie again, but shortly and frankly it was boring, terrible, violent and it would have been better to stay at home...

After the cinema one of the boys told me that Suren was calling and told him that i shall pack my things, as on Monday i'll go with him to Birur. And that we also spend the night there. All i knew then was that the family of Suren is living in Birur, so i tought it was just a family-visit. But then it turned out better :)))

The reason for a Monday-visit was that there was a car-festival, as they explained me. First i imagined a huge field full with cars (oldtimers, maybe also some new autos). And i was really wondering why Ambika was so delighted to come with us to the car-festival. Never thought that she's interested in cars....

Well, she's not ;) The fact is that such a car-festival is a religious event. There are some travelling-gods (statues of gods carried from one town to the other), and at each place they organise a car-festival. Almost all of the bigger churches have a huge car, mainly really old, nicely carved, made of heavy wood, and they place the travelling god on the car, the religius leaders (gurus) sit around, and they pull the car around if possible, or just pull it back and forth, if there's no place to pull it to.At the beginning of the festival all the people from all around the village were arriving in theis best / nicest sarees, and then the whole happening started. There were some drum and trumpet (?) players, and they continued playing some quite monotonious, but still nice music until the event ended. Then people were breaking some coconuts on the huge wheels of the car, following this everyone started to throw bananas at the car.

Breaking coconuts / flying bananas:

Every year they are building an extra roof for the car, this is supposed to protect the gurus and the god from the bananas. Usually it is a rather unstable structure, and quite often it is falling down, severely hurting, sometimes killing some people....

The car:

And what is the reason for the banana-throwing and the coconut-cracking? Naturally one thing: so that the people's prayers are listened to by the god(s). But the throwing of the bananas is also a great fun, especially if there's a "big white woman" at the happening - in this case she might also help to hear our prayesr, so hit her with the banana, and life shall be better. Or soemthing similar must have been on the mind of some of the children, because although i was standing really far off from the car and the crowd, some of the bananas were hitting me as well.... If i would at least like bananas... (btw, following the event some of the poor people were collecting the bananas/broken coconut that were left on the field, so again there's an economic background: the reach offer the bananas for the gods, and the poor have at least a nice dinner.).

But the pulling of the car was still not started: first quite some of the women started to walk around the car, with small clay pots on their heads, where they were setting up small fires. They were the ones that were praying for getting married, to get children, or heal from some illness. And what is the point of the fire: only those women's prayers will be fulfilled, who manages to keep the fire as long as she's three times walking around the car. To make this happen, all the women not participating in the walking were throwing small pieces of camphor into the fires. Here i was almost making a huge mistake in "megszentsegteleniteni" the praying women: i have forgotten to take off my shoes before i was about to throw some camphor into some women's fires. I was technically pulled back by the people around me, and explained that "slippers of!!!!" before moving close to the praying ones.

Women with the fires + the musicians:

Following this the car-pulling has started. Naturally this is something exclusively done by the men, and for them pulling the car is something similar in meaning than the fire-carrying for the women: they prayers will be heard, and anyway, it is really a "holy" thing to pull the car. Once the car was set into motion, the unstability of the extra roof of the car became quite obvious (and forced me to go even further away from the events). But generally it was a great view: all the men crowding around the car, the women standing further away, all shouting, the music still playing, some late-comers still throwing their bananas, the sun slowly setting behind the hills... wow. I hope the pictures give at least some idea on how it all looked like.

Pulling of the car:

Following the car-festival the day still went on, as we were invited to join the "annual function" (celebration) of the nearby temple, that also serves as a cultural-social centre. We'we already paid a short visit there in the morning, but the big function was just starting in the evening. First there was an awards-ceremony, but the main attraction was a concert by some really famous ("she also played on TV!") singer. Well, the first 30 minutes were ok. After 45 minutes my butt started to tell me that slowly i shall go. At around 60 mins i started to really be bored by the music, but it took me another 30 min to convince Ambika that we should go. This was already after listening to the music for 1,5 hrs.... And it turned out that the concert was going on for another 2 more hours....

What were my problems with the music?
A: i was hungry
B: it was nice, but rather monotonious, all the songs sung in a super-high nasal voice
C: the amplification was just terrible....

The concert:

Our departure was planned for the following morning, but then the family of Suren (actually our hosts, the cousin and the oncle of S.) convinced him that we should stay until the evening, and we went to a really wonderful temple. It was built in the 12th century, made of stone imported from Nepal, and the whole Ramayana, Mahabharata and Phagavata was encarved in the outer walls of the temple... Just look at the pictures, and be amased ;)

The temple:

So, seems like my exploring the country continues.