Sunday, January 2, 2011

A Different Take on Christmas

Dunga Amman
Four years ago I decided Christmas Day should be the auspicious occasion for me to have my double hip replacement in the Hirandandani Hospital in Mumbai. I arrived there on Christmas Eve and around six pm the next day I was out on morphine, the first 'double' hip operation to be performed in India was underway, and by nine in the morning, Boxing Day, I was up and moving on the Zimmer. Then after only a few days I was so appreciating the potential this operation was going to have, after years of progressively worsening pain, culminating in necessitating the continual popping of pain killers. But three weeks after the operation, as I was getting up to pack my bag to head back to the Emirates, I twisted sideways and re-broke the right hip, and the four most miserable days of my life followed... So, I took the scenic road to recovery, and a long and twisting one it's been. To be honest it'll never be perfect, but cycling for the last fifteen months has been a saviour. Anyway that's all another story.
Durga Amman as she is classically portrayed
Time flies when you're having fun and now after three months here in Paradise Christmas has been and gone. In my usual unsocial way I was leaving my options open regarding how I was going to spend the twenty fifth, as I tend to get a little restless sitting around all day shooting the proverbial and waiting for a turkey dinner, though I'm sure Brenda's would have been of the highest order. As it was that option hadn't arisen when I decided how I'd spend the day. Fina and Sen live around two kilometers down the road from me in a small village called Poudre D'Or, and on the twenty fifth the village celebrates Durga Amman, the Mother of the World, otherwise known as Kali or Parvati, amongst other names. So, as they saw no reason why I couldn't join in, I decided I'd show my respects to the Mother as my Christmas festivity. For ten days prior to the ceremony those participating fast and pray and consequently I abstained from meat and fish, though I did carry on smoking and boozing as normal, but thankfully the do's and don'ts don't seem to broach these vices. Another aspect of my preparation was to buy new, unsoiled, white clothes; a new longi (sarong), shirt, boxers and pants, which Fina and I then dyed in turmeric water. Your clothes have to be new , or otherwise the outfit from previous ceremonies, though these must not have been worn otherwise.
On Christmas Day morning I was only to eat fruit and drink water or fresh juice, until Sen arrived with a tiffin of Kheer, a scrummy rice pudding with cardamom, cinnamon, raisins and nuts, along with half a dozen puri rotis. Then I was told to be ready for pick up at twelve thirty sharp. Pick up came in the shape of a vey ancient taxi with a maximum speed of around twenty clicks, so it was fortunate that we only had the two or so kilometers to cover to get to Poudre D'or. After 'rush, rush, rush, get your new togs on' we arrived at a shrine down besides a wee river, where there were about another dozen folk, mainly women, gathered. The village is only small so I guess that the procession is in ratio, so equally small and intimate... But as one pm stretched to two pm which in turn eeked its way past three and on through four, before gently meandering on to five in the afternoon, our number's slowly but surely swelled until there must have been over two hundred of us. I still don't understand why we had to be there so early, but there we go. Sen and Fina are, though, very dedicated and serious about their responsibilities. As it was it was nice to see the troops mass, arriving on foot, by minibus or local bus, and even dropped off by Dad, who drives away as is not participating himself. Although I did note that the majority of men arrived latterly, leaving the women to hold the fort for the early hours. So when the Pandit, or priest, for lack of a better translation, arrived, I'd had plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere. And of course this is the Hindu way, time is fairly unimportant, and in India, especially, I always feel a strong sense of timelessness emanating from the one billion odd inhabitants. Sen then asked the Pandit if I could participate in the ceremony and he said 'for sure', or words to that effect, and tied a saffron coloured cord looped around a piece of turmeric to my wrist, to ward of any lurking evil spirits. One of the things I find so special about Hinduism is that, although the faithful are very devout and sincere in their spirituality, they go about their puja, prayers, ceremonies, in a very relaxed, unimposing way. Unlike Christianity which is so serious and formal, or Islam, which is so fanatical and 'if you're not with us you're against us'. I'm a foreign stranger to these people, and I'm not Hindu, but the Pandit's quite happy for me to join in and not a single person, to my knowledge, raised an eyebrow at my presence, despite my being the only whitey there. 
Now the Pandit is here serious preparations get under way. Fina takes me down to the brook where I remove my flip flops, I'm to remain bare footed from now on, and stand in the running water. She then lights some incense and waves the smoke around me, first in circles one way and then the other. After that she quarters a lime and repeats the sequence, ending by throwing the four pieces East, West, North and South, irrespective of who the bits land on... Then Sen tied a lime in a length of saffron cotton which I knotted around my waist with the lime positioned over my left hip. The women, all beautifully dressed, mainly in shades of red, orange and saffron, wait patiently, sitting, sleeping, eating, chatting and joking, under the shade of our special tree or down by the water. The men, though, are getting on with the serious preparations as two cushions are woven from a pile of camphor branches, recently delivered in the back of a pick up truck. One is to cushion the head of the chap who will carry a pottery pot filled with charcoal embers, onto which more camphor leaves are thrown to give off a thick, pungent, smoke. The other is built up in to a three foot tower, wrapped in two saris, carefully folded. In fact this was a very important issue, as after four or five attempts the Pandit himself came over to fold the material. These are the little intricacies I don't understand, but despite all the seemingly casual attitude, they are crucially important. Then limes and other religiously significant artifacts are attached and after a lot of thisings and thatings and rearrangements, significant to the main man and other main players, the team are satisfied. Then we move on to acts of faith as many of the men and some of the women have their tongues pierced by a five inch trident. The son of the Pandit carry's out this operation, adding on a leaf of camphor before twisting the pin ninety degrees so it can then be gripped between the lips. Others go a step further and the trident is pierced through the cheek, above the corner of the mouth and then through the other side of the mouth. From either end delicate chains with hooks on the end are embedded above the corners of the eyes. At this stage Sen had pushed me to the front and I found myself next in line... Eeek, but no, he just wanted me to see. Though next year, having been able to psych myself up to it I reckon I'll go for the trident through the tongue? It has to be done. A progression. My respect to the greater picture. Anyway we'll see.
Final Inspection
Finally all seems to be as should be and the pot of smoldering  camphor is in place, although it takes a few attempts to get the totem properly squared up, what with walking into over hanging branches and the cushion not being positioned properly. But then the Pandit declares the procession is ready to set off and surprise, surprise, we're only about an hour and a half behind schedule... Ahead of the procession a water tanker spews water on to the tarmac, I guess to cleanse the road. The Pandit leads the way, dancing and chanting, followed by drummers, the bearers and the main players, all men. Sen and I are just behind as the procession threads it's way through the village and back out again past the shrine where we started out from. Then, as dusk sets in, we walk on through the water, which always seems to be streaming down the road, irrespective of if we're going up or down a gradient, another two kilometers or so, before reaching the temple of Durga Amman. I'm about fortieth in line at this stage and as the front runners enter the courtyard to the temple I can't make out what is happening, but basically the Pandit and others have worked themselves up into a fair old spiritual fervor and are preparing the scene for the finale. Then with the drums crashing and the onlookers chanting, our line slowly moves forward until there in front of me is my objective; a pit of burning embers around eighteen foot long. Before I know it it's my turn to go and the Pandit blesses me, I clasp my wand with camphor branches, as in prayer and step forward. The old man says "A droit, a droit, to the right", but I reckoned it looked hotter to the left, so I took that path. Slowly and steadily, with the toes turned upwards so as not to catch hot coals between them, the only piece of advice I'd had, I walked around ten steps before reaching the far end of the pit. Later, while lying in my hospital bed, with both feet heavily bandaged, and suffering from third degree burns I... No, it wasn't like that. In fact it was only the last step or so that I even began to get an inkling of warmth beneath my feet, and reckon that I would be able to go twice the distance on another occasion. In fact the hairiest moment was when reaching the end of the pit as there was a trough of water embedded in the ground, and stepping in to it my foot sunk down about twelve inches, taking me by surprise and I nearly tumbled to the ground. Would have been a disappointing ending.
A family affair
After me came maybe another sixty plus folk, Dads and Mums carrying their toddlers, old women dancing their way, families and little children. Then finally the Pandit and his close companions, who where by now truly whipped up in to a full on spiritual fervor, dance through and around the temple, each of them in their own state of trance. Then, suddenly, it's all over and everyone is queuing up to get their vegetarian nosebag, served up on a banana leaf. Looked fine, but not for me, as I was heading home to my first bloody, rare, piece of meat in ten days. But proceedings were not quite over, as when the old taxi drew up at my front gates Fina and Sen told me to stay outside, as they disappeared into the house for a few minutes. Then Fina came back out with a glass of water and turmeric and another lime. She dipped her fingers in the liquid and flicked it in the four directions and over me and then cut the lemon, again into quarters, waving the pieces one way then the other, before throwing them left, right, back and forth. The icing on the cake was when she then said "And now we are family". Only then was my initiation complete. But for her the remaining turmeric water was still of importance as she went around the house and garden sprinkling the liquid as if giving blessing. Even Frankie, my German Shepherd pup was doused and blessed.  
My halo!
So why did I take this option for my first Christmas in Mauritius..? Over the years I've ofter been in situations where Christmas is not celebrated, or I've been travelling and so have not been involved in a festive scenario. Consequently celebrating the occasion has not been a big deal to me as it's a family and friends situation. Also, as I said, I like doing different things and the way this developed with Fina and Sen, who have become my closest companions since I've been here, seemed like the natural path. And then the deciding factor is that I've wanted to do a fire walk for years, but, be it due to inverted snobbery or whatever, I've built up this distaste to the way that yet another practice, that has had a deeper, generally spiritual, background to it, has been taken by the modern day corporate team builder and turned in to a money making event. Turned in to a four day seminar where the punters are told goodness knows what about the does and don't of walking on fire. The whole caboodle hyped up out of all proportion so they happily pay up their five hundred smackers. Ok, fine, everyone ends up happy, the promoter and the sheep, but not for me. On this occasion it all seemed nice and natural and I was with folk who have been doing it for years without making a big Hurrah out of it all. Thank goodness that if their is a majority religion here in Mauritius then it's Hinduism!




   
               

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