Happy Diwali 2023

I don't pretend to know a great deal about Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. These are the things I do tend to know off the top of my head: It's the biggest holiday of the year for Hindus, and involves both a great deal of decorative lights—candles or otherwise—as well as fireworks, which kind of makes it comparable in the U.S. to a cross between Christmas and Independence Day. I do know that every time Diwali rolls around, the horrid smog in Delhi is made even worse. This context, of course, is wildly changed in the States, where we have a large majoroty of Christians (63%) and India is majority Hindus (80%).  Here in the States, Hindus don't get mass media involvement in their biggest holiday, and instead have to celebrate with local communities, or, as in the case of the event Shobhit and I met Karen at yesterday, a city sponsored "cultural festival"—this one being among many that occur at Seattle Center for different cultures throughout the year. (Shobhit and I just went to another one part of the same series, the "Dia de Muertos Festival," the Sunday before Halloween.) According to Shobhit, it seemed very obvious to him that—as Karen had already kind of vaguely predicted—there was something not quite fully authentic about the Diwali Festival yesterday. He was a little stuck on the use of the phrase "hare Krishna" with Diwali (in fact the projected "HAPPY DIWALI" up on the wall had the phrase directly beneath it, which I decided to crop out), telling Karen and me that the whole "Hare Krishna" group is a very American thing, and people don't tend to use the phrase in conjuntion with Diwali in India. I tried to look up what organization was presenting this festival, and apparently it's "in partnership" with Northwest Share, whose stated purpose is frustratingly broad: "organizing programs for the benefit of the general public in the areas of Health, Arts,Culture,Relationships and Education." That is clearly not specific to the local population of South Asian heritage, and I have no clue which such people they partnered with. I only know that the festival was definitely smaller in scope than Dia de Muertos festival had been, as that one had the most interesting stuff inside Fisher Pavlion, which was now closed to set up for the upcoming "Seattle Christmas Market." Thus, Diwali Festival was just in the Armory, where Shobhit and I met up with Karen, and we hung out for barely more than an hour. There were also fewer booths at the Diwali festival, but just as Karen had hoped, there was a booth where people were doing henna. Virtually every booth at this festival did not post strict prices, and would just say "suggested donation," usually of only five bucks—including the henna! Karen said that even if they'd been charging $20 she would have paid for it. Granted, at that price they likely would not have gotten as many clients, so maybe the difference was a wash. Shobhit left Karen and me in the henna line to go get some food, which didn't even have a donation price, just a donation box; I think Shobhit gave them five bucks, before they gave him two plates when he only wanted to get one. He tried to offer one to Karen but she said she wasn't hungry, so Shobhit and I both got a nice lunch—nothing to write home about, but for a table at an event like this, actually pretty impressively tasty. I briefly considered getting henna myself, then decided against it. Karen was the only one who got it done, and Shobhit and I just waited patiently for them to finish, even though Karen tried to encourage us to wander around until she was done. We had kind of done that already. When she was done, we browsed booths a little bit, but Karen being a wheelchair user and being behind even a small crowd meant she couldn't even see the booth, so she would pretty quickly want to move on. She did suggest we go up to the second floor to take a look at the cultural dances happening on the stage from up there, which was a good idea; that's how I got the cool elevating shot, through the glass wall of the elevator. We kind of saw everything we could see pretty quickly, and then went back downstairs, where Karen suggested we find a table to sit at and chat for a bit. I spied a single open table in the dining area on the west side of the Armory, and I had myself one of the mini chocolate cupcakes Karen brought us, because she made some at home and said she made too many.  Shobhit wanted me to give as many away as possible now that he's back on Weight Watchers. I went next door to watch a movie with Alexia last night (Six Days Seven Nights, easily the dumbest of the Harrison Ford movies we've watched so far), and when I got back only two of the cupcakes were left. Diwali, which, much like Easter, is timed each year based on the lunar cycle—in this case, landing on the day of the new moon each autumn. (Ironically, this scheduling is directly tied to rituals and traditions of Hinduism, whereas in the case of Easter, the timing—in that case, the first Sunday after the full moon on or after the spring equinox—is derived from early Christians' desire for the holiday to occur around the time of Jewish Passover, and Passover is determined by the lunar cycle.) Diwali is actually a five-day festival, but wit the third (middle) day being the main celebration, the one that occurs on the new moon. Clearly this would be related to the whole "Festival of Lights" idea, given there is no moonlight reflected off a New Moon. And: tonight is the New Moon. The "Diwali Festival" happened yesterday at Seattle Center, just as the Saturday closest to the actual holiday—cultural festivals are often timed this way. But it was tonight, rather than last night, that when Shobhit came home from work, we lit a bunch of candles, including the two clay lamps Shobhit actually bought at Seattle Center yesterday. Those were the two more authentic lights we lit tonight, but then lit a whole bunch of other candles, which Shobhit went out of his way to make sure were placed all over the condo—most were in the living room; there was one each in the kitchen, both of the two bathrooms, and in the primary bedroom. He placed three candles on the windowsill in the guest bedroom, and three more out on the balcony outside the guest bedroom window. I took a video clip touring all of the candles in the condo, and then set the video to a traditional Hindu song called "Om Jai Jagdish Hare" ("Oh Lord of the Universe), a choice Shobhit suggested when I asked if there were any particular song strongly associated with the holiday. I looked it up on TikTok and immediately recognized it as the first track from my "Matthew and Shobhit's Wedding" playlist, as it was one of the songs played at our wedding ceremony in 2013. On TikTok, however, I could only find a clip of the song one minute long, and my video tour is a minute and 23 seconds. It took me a couple of minutes, but I did manage to problem solve this: I found the music file on my external hard drive, and was thus able to combine the first 1:23 of the song with the video in iMovie on my laptop, and then post it—to my socials, to my Diwali 2023 photo album on Flickr (which, with an additional 7 shots from today, now contains 30 shots, a record), and I even texted it to Shobhit, at his request, so that he could send it to his mom on WhatsApp. His mom called shortly after, and they were speaking in Hindi so I couldn't tell why Shobhit was cracking up. He overheard his mom bragging to her maid about the Diwali decor her son had up, but was embellishing it, saying he had pictures of gods up—which we do not; we only set out the candles. In any case, given how much I truly love Christmas, the more time goes by, the more Shobhit wants to do something for Diwali each year, even if it's just to light the candles. (This year he also put rice on his forehead.) I feel like we should do what we can to celebrate Diwali as much as we can each year. The festival at Seattle Center was okay, but I suspect the one that also happens in Bellevue is better, given the larger South Asian population on the eastside. We should check that one out next year. [posted 10:40 pm]

styled hair and flaming shit

— पांच हजार दो सौ अठ्ठावन्न — I got my twice-yearly haircut after work yesterday, walking direct from work to Rudy's Barbershop on Pine Street. I had a 5:40 appointment, and just as happened back in May, the cut was done in surprisingly short time. The guy who cut my hair even revisited the back to make it a bit shorter; I always ask for the back to be much shorter so that it doesn't grow into any kind of mullet over the next six months. Otherwise I tell them I simply want half the length cut back so basically it looks the same again in six months. I couldn't decide whether to wear a face mask during the appointment. I know some people for whom this would never be a question. I even went back to my blog post in which I mentioned having my last appointment, which wound up being largely dominated by an account of a very strange man who had gotten in ahead of me and wound up asking for all his cut hair to be swept up off the floor and given back to him in a plastic sack. But, nowhere in there did I mention whether I had worn a mask. I'm thinking I didn't, actually, probably feeling "safer" due to being both vaccinated and boosted plus having recovered from my first (and, so far, only) bout of covid just the week prior. I do mention a mask once elsewhere in the post, noting that I wore one inside an essential oils store in downtown Renton mostly just because it cut down on the awfully strong odor. Not to say that I should always just follow what everyone else is doing, but not a single other person in Rudy's was wearing a mask yesterday. (Ironically, on my walk home, I did pass one other salon with just two people in it, a hairdresser and a client, and the hairdresser wore a mask but the client didn't.) Rationalizing, for no objectively good reason, that I spend more time maskless inside a restaurant these days than I would inside Rudy's—which only had a handful of people inside—I didn't put it on. I know it made cutting my hair easier. Of course I also know it wouldn't have made cutting my hair especially difficult to have it on either. Whatever. I'm also feeling more protected, with admittedly only minimal evidence, due to having gotten the Omicron booster shot about five weeks ago. Who knows how long its efficacy will remain adequate, though. I'm still strict about mask wearing on public transit and in places like grocery stores. If you said I was being inconsistent here, I suppose I would have no basis on which to argue. I've also been working in the office maskless all along, ever since finally ending work-from-home and returning the office at the end of June last year (with the exception of when I worked from home through January). The office remains far less populated than pre-pandemic, but there are people here. What kind of further caution or mitigation I might adopt in the near future and over the holidays will depend on what kinds of numbers we see. Of course, a ton of cases now go unreported since we have endless supplies of home tests. Well, anyway. I got my haircut, no one in there had a mask on. That's what it was. I was in there for maybe twenty minutes. So far as I can tell, the guy did a very good job. I would fucking hope so; it cost me nearly $60. Still, as always, I won't know for sure exactly how good a cut it was until the hair is growing again, and how the curls grow out with it. I wasn't as satisfied with it this past time, too much of the hair from the very top of my head not falling in a way that blended very well with the hairs further down my head. Time will tell, but if this grows out well, I will book my next appointment with this same guy again. I'll make a note of his name in my Outlook calendar for reference next April. Or maybe February, if I get the cut early in time for the trip to Australia, which was what I did in 2020—a big reason my hair was so much longer after the pandemic stretch, unable to cut it again until April 2021. My hair grew way longer that year than I ever would have intended otherwise. The guy who cut my hair was bald and stocky, kind of looking intimidating by sight alone, until he moved and spoke, which made me suspect he was queer. The hairdresser to our left definitely was. Judging by the conversation he had with the woman whose hair that guy was doing, even the woman was a hairdresser there, just getting her hair done in a down period. They all spoke briefly about "corporate" and how they didn't used to allow getting haircuts on the clock, but now they do, apparently because they never have the time for it otherwise? I don't quite get that, except for the idea that naturally they don't want to come back to their own workplace outside work hours to get their hair done. I usually take a picture of my hair right after haircuts, but decided to wait a day today, so it would be after my normal hair prep after my shower. If I remember I'll take a selfie tonight. I should have taken one right before the appointment and I spaced it. There are plenty of other recent photos of me anyway. — पांच हजार दो सौ अठ्ठावन्न — — पांच हजार दो सौ अठ्ठावन्न — I didn't do much of note after getting home. I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and hot chocolate for dinner. I thought about watching a movie and never got around to it. Shobhit sent me some fascinating photos, and especially video clips—he's never sent me video of it—of his family engaged in Diwali ritual at home in Delhi. This is their biggest Hindu holiday, for our point of reference like a cross between Christmas and the Fourth of July, it being a "festival of lights": the decorate their houses with lights, and they also use fireworks. This video, the longest of the ones he sent me, was genuinely heartwarming and charming to watch. Shobhit's brother was there (I sent the video to some friends and Gabriel said the man was "Shobhit's twin, just with gray hair"—he's also thinner), as was Shobhit's sister-in-law and one of his nieces. You can hear Shobhit singing along with his mother at the end of the clip. Then there is this video, at the end of which Shashi Ji is flinging drops of water onto the others, apparently cleansing them of sins. There's a bit of giggling at that point, which Shobhit said was due to his niece making a joke about Shashi Ji claiming she's never sinned, or something to that effect. They're all speaking Hindi so I don't understand it. There's a lot more to say about some of the other things Shobhit texted, not least of which is that I learned, somehow for the first time after 18 years with a man who grew up Hindu, that cows are so sacred to Hindus that every part of them are sacred—even their shit. As in, that photo features several offerings to Hindu gods (specifically three of them represented in that photo; hover over the image on a desktop computer to get them identified in Flickr notes), including both puris with sugar, and dried cow dung lit on fire. Shobhit mentioned "cow shit" as though it wouldn't even occur to him that I might find this strange. In fact, I was bowled over by it: what the fuck? I had a lot of questions. How fresh is it? Where do you get it? Do you just go outside and pick it up from the street? Shobhit said you can buy it, or family or friends will give you some. This wad of cow dung, apparently, could be anywhere from several days to several weeks old. He said it's dried cow dung; I have no idea whether that makes it any more sanitary than if it had just been, uh, freshly manufactured. I suppose it probably does, but still. Turns out, this is very common practice, in some communities—not Shobhit's mom's, thank god—taken to extremes. I mean, I guess I should be grateful Shobhit and his mom aren't smearing cow shit all over themselves. Also, I made a mental note to be mindful of certain bias in all media (even Reuters), and to keep in mind the people featured in that news article are not represented of all the Indian people, or even all poor or uneducated poor people. That said, it still says something that there was literally flaming shit on the kitchen counter at Shobhit's mom's house. Shobhit illustrated how widely used and versatile cow shit is in their culture and history, though. Some people use it for fuel, burning it in stoves the way do firewood. I found these details kind of jaw dropping. It's not often anymore than I learn something about India that is wildly alien to me, after so much time with Shobhit, but it certainly happened yesterday. I learned from that Reuters article that some people have even used it as soap. Soap? To be fair, the article also notes how doctors were sending out notices to make sure people understood smearing themselves with cow shit would not boost their immunity, as believed by some, in a way so as to protect from covid-19. So it should be also noted that plenty of actually clinically trained doctors do exist in India. It's not just a country of a billion people smearing themselves with cow shit. I would guess the cow shit smearers are more like, I don't know? A few thousand? Tens of thousands? Actually I have no idea. Even a small percentage of a billion people is a large number. — पांच हजार दो सौ अठ्ठावन्न — [posted 12:36 pm]