I am down to my final 6 weeks. Yesterday gifts were handed out to everyone for Diwali – a box of dried fruits and nuts. I now have healthy snacks for the weekend. I also know what the song by cab driver plays over and over again on his cassette player, it is about Diwali. I couldn’t figure out what the word was before that they kept on repeating.

I was invited out to eat last night with the Operations group to a local restaurant. The restaurant is about 20 blocks away but took 45 minutes to get there. Traffic is a mess with everyone out shopping for Diwali. People ordered for me, it was family style. I had mutton, chicken, rice, dal, and naan. It was a one spicy dish after another. The rice was the worst of all though. My lips were burning for an hour afterwards. Plus there was no silverware so it was only eating with your hands and naan. The curry for the mutton was like a spicy sloppy joe mixture. It was fun to eat with my hands. I made a mess using several napkins. Also I had a runny nose, watery eyes, and my forehead was beginning to sweat. At least the coworkers got a good laugh out of it. It cleared out my sinuses though.

When I got home for there was a big part outside for an early Diwali party. Fireworks went off from 10:30 to 11:15 with no breaks. If this is for a small neighborhood pre party, Saturday is going to be a long and sleepless night.

Today’s holiday is called Dhanteras. Everyone is supposed to go out and buy metal objects for good luck. For the rich this means gold and silver. For everyone else it is metal household utensils. Today is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year. From the morning newspaper article, Dhanteras is celebrated with gusto and Enthusiasm. “Lakshmi Puja” is performed in the evenings when tiny diyas of clay are lit to drive away the shadows of evil spirits. Dhajans – devotional songs – in praise of Goddess Laxmi are sung and Naivedya of traditional sweets is offered to the Goddess. There is a peculiar custom in Maharashtra to lightly pound dry coriander seeds with jaggery and offer as Naivedya. In villages, cattle are adorned and worshiped by farmers as they form the main source of their income. In south India, cows are offered particularly special veneration because they are though of as incarnations of the Goddess Lakshmi.

Another part of Dawali is the cleaning of your house to appease one of the gods for good luck and prosperity. It is basically spring cleaning in the fall. From what I hear from some people it is the only time during the year that the house gets cleaned.

I was reading a summary of a book and it said Hindu’s have over 380 million gods. I also saw a man with a full design of the dot on his head. This was a unique design that covered his entire forehead with yellow and red. The coworkers said he was from Southern India and that is how they show they have recently honored a god.