Dasara is a festival celebrated across India. It is celebrated with the worship of implements used in daily life such as computers, books, vehicles, kitchen tools etc. It is an effort to see the divine in the tools and objects that one uses each day. Basically it includes all tools that help one earn one's livelihood. So teachers and writers will put books, pens or computers on their alters to worship...
For those in the driving profession, cars/buses/trucks are decorated with flowers and worshiped, invoking God's blessing for success in coming years. This festival party was going on right outside our School location...
Decorated busses
On the first day of this festival I was running an errand when the wives and families of the bus drivers were celebrating and worshiping right outside where we were shooting. They were doing this by singing and chanting in front of the Durga alter (see above) and clapping their hands and dancing in a circle...
I was completely hi-jacked into the celebration circle...
Shannon does the Clap circle.....
Boy did I feel underdressed!...The women and little girls wear their finest clothes for these celebrations...Festival Chic!
The next morning on the set the entire crew got into the act. Uma and I were trying to finish up a shot list when we were told we had to stop and come out to the courtyard. There, our crew had set up it's own Durga Shrine...each of us had to break a coconut to honor Durga...
They even made Derth and I do the coconut breaking ritual...
and after Derth gets his Bindi...
Yup I did it too...here I am with my broken coconut...(It was hard to do!!)
Even the camera gets a Bindi on festival days!
(the orange cirle is the camera bindi...)
This festival is also celebrated in homes...I leave you with a couple of images of Aravind's (my co-line producers) family - His father who is in his 80's celebrated with his grandchildren - teaching them first to pray...
and then to honor the sun...
So Sweet!
No comments:
Post a Comment