1008 Names

So it is Navratiri again. The nine nights of the Goddess. And oh how I love it. Each day I have taken a small number of students to my amma's temple to sit on the floor with the other women as they chant the 1008 names of the Goddess. For some it is boring, for some it is hard to sit still on the hard floor in a sari in a crammed-full temple, but for me it is soothing beyond belief. Rhythm. A name. A sigh. Another name...Peace.

I would by no means characterize all Navratiri events as soothing and peaceful, however. I took Lauren to the Meenakshi Temple on Saturday night, as she was never here in the fall before and thus has never seen the Meenakshi Temple lit up like Las Vegas. It was, like 2 years ago, awesome. Each gopuram (the high parts of the temple that stick up into the air vastly higher than any other building in Madurai) was lit up with Christmas-light-like lights. And then the East Gopuram, the main one, had all these intrictate moving light displays - of Murugen, and Meenakshi, and a Shiva linga. Of movie theater curtains opening to reveal dancing Gods behind them. Of elephants playing ball and rabbits playing drums. Blinking, pulsing, flashing.

The temple was packed. It took a good half hour just to push our way in admist the crowd of temple-goers and the police trying in vain to retain order. (And trying to occasionally grope women in the packed crowd, apparently. One certainly had sore shins Sunday morning after a misplaced hand found itself on my chest.)

And of course, my favorite part of Navratiri (or of any holiday for that matter, no matter about the culture or religion or anything) is the dancing. The Jain community in Madurai gets together every night during the nine nights to dance traditional Gujarati folk dances - and it is beyond fun. Lauren and I accompanied Ambika and her family one night, and danced all the way til 1 am (a late night by Madurai standards!) And the weekend before, I attended a benefit arranged by a women's organization in Madurai called "Dandiya Night" which was really just an expensive night of Gujarati folk dances. But it, too, was a blast - I attened with 6 of the students, some of whom were as willing as me to jump right in and join, regardless of whether we knew the steps. And at the end of that night, the DJ (see, I said "expensive") decided to have a "free for all" rather than continuing with the folk dancing. He began playing Hindi and Tamil pop, interspersed with bad old American pop (Aqua's "Barbie Girl" definately made an appearance.) Enter Indian club scene. This may happen in Bombay, or Delhi, or Bangalore. But this does not happen in Madurai. So we danced and danced and danced. Mary and I did the macarena to Tamil pop songs, much to some spectators' amusement. Audrey won an award for being the "Most Ethnically Dressed Foreigner" (she wore her one of her host sister's traditional Gujarati mirrored and embroidered dresses), and Justin won an award for being the "Tallest Man." (He's tall.)

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, there are few things in this world that make me as happy as dancing. Any kind of dancing.

And this week was full of it. Full of dancing. Full of chanting and singing and visiting friends and eating sweets, full of lights and colors and sounds. Full of the Goddess, and her 1008 names. Full of life, I guess. Even more so than usual.