Diwali and other enlightening moments

During one specific time of the year, India turns into a fiery battlefield...well, this is what most Europeans would think while spending time in India during Diwali. Diwali, popularly known as the festival of lights, is an important five-day festival in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, occurring between mid-October and mid-November. For Hindus, Diwali is the most important festival of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes (thank you, Wikipedia...).
Celebrating Diwali includes several rituals and customs. There is for example a cleaning and purifing ritual. The whole body gets covered with oil, massage optional and afterwards you take a bath. Accordingly you put on new clothes.

But there are other customs as well. Celebrated in the same way as New Years Eve in other countries a lot of crackers and rockets are burned. The only major difference is, that there are no regulations for these crackers in India. Compared to an average German cracker, Indian crackers sound like an explosion of a gas tank or a gunshot fired close to your ears. This is why the experience for people from abroad is like witnessing a civil war in the streets. Nothing for the faint-hearted!
In addition rockets don't explode as you would expect at the peak of their trajectory (Flugbahn). They might as well explode straigtaway or go up, go down again and explode somewhere unexpected. Some risky business to light rockets ;-)

All in all diwali is a great festival to witness in India. People decorate their houses with chain of lights, the entrance is ornamented with chalk paintings and so on. They put a lot of effort in it! Very, very beautiful to look at.

Diwali has been a great time in India. We have been to Mumbai (Bombay) during that time and on our flight back to Bangalore we could see the whole metropolitan area illuminated.

However, there is a different story. I usually go to sports several times during the week. Be it for shuttle/badminton, tennis or squash, there's always a group or people you can join in with. Some indian friends of mine play there as well and it is always a pleasure to have a match with them. There are several ways though how to manage the way home afterwards...
1. you go by rickshaw (17-20 INR)
2. you go by bus (4 INR)
3. you walk/run home

On rainy days it is almost impossible to get a rickshaw to a reasonable prize or just to even manage to find an empty one. The bus is a good alternative although it is not really following a schedule. During rush hour, after sports, it is in many cases the best thing to walk or run home. Well, I gave it a shot the other time. And I had the most interesting experience. In order to explain that I need to begin from scratch.
In India there are many dogs. Living in the streets (most of them) and in houses of people (the lucky ones). Dogs are very curious about things, nearly everything. Especially about moving things (slowly getting there, but I think you get my point). Well, on my way home, jogging, I've had an encounter with a bunch of dogs. It is not the fact, that dogs are curious, what makes that story interesting. It is the fact that dogs love chasing moving objects (or human beings). About three or four dogs suddenly running after me I felt a little bit uncomfortable. Well, I had my sports gear including tennis and shuttle racket with me, I would have managed ;-) Luckily, when I stopped running and turned around, they split and left. True story!

India might be smiling at you right now...

India is home...to many different cultures, religions, more than one billion people. And if there would be only one thing that I appreciate, it would definitely the way people are like. It makes you feel, as already mentioned above, well...home. Everybody is eager to help, everybody is smiling. This makes getting around in this country so easy! There's always a helping hand somewhere.

Being from a different country, being from Europe, being from Germany does have its advantages, I gotta admit!As a white person you're always something special, in many ways. On the one hand, there's the white guy, the wealthy rich guy who spends his money in the country. A person with bright skin, which is a good thing in the caste system. On the other hand there's a white guy who brought change to the country. And change is something which is not always considered a good thing! Some people tend to blame the white guy for pollution, increasing traffic jams, change of culture and of mentality.
There are always two sides to the coin. I've seen both. I have to point out though that most of the people like white people.

Meeting Indians is always something I definitely enjoy. Last week it's been my first time to ride the bus. There are some differences though to the German bus system! First thing first, you enter the bus while it is actually driving...not at walking speed, but driving at some km/h. A guy on the bus invited us to join the ride if we were on our way to Shanti Nagar (which is the district of the city we live in). On the bus, at first, people were surprised to see white people entering the bus. It is not a usual thing, since most of them go by rickshaw or taxi (since they have money for that). Then, most of them were smiling at us, some kids came over to our place and wanted to shake hands, saying hi. They went off, all proud and smiling. It is a great thing when you realize how people enjoy the small things in life and you actually contribute by being open-minded and thankful as well.

One night we went to a club, near UB City Mall. Great thing to relax, having a beer and enjoying the music. We also joined the Octoberfest in Bangalore. What fun! There've been a lot of Europeans, of course! We met some Germans, a french guy, British...Octoberfest in Bangalore is, however, a little bit different to Oktoberfest in Germany. A Bollywood was playing (crowd went crazy, I can tell you^^), there's been just one big tent with kind of a club, international music playing (crowd went crazy as well^^). The beer...well...nothing compared to German beer ;)
Another event, this time called Oktoberfest in Bangalore (you reckognize the difference?), was even better. We went to a hotel where everything was decorated bavarian style! All blue-white, beer mugs, German food (!!) like Frankfurter, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, Spätzle and many German dishes more...and of course, a German folklore band from Bavaria playing! They were playing lots of traditional stuff from Oktoberfest but also a Hindi song (the crowd went...well, you know ;)) and later on party songs. We really had a blast! A lot of Indian people were attending the party as well as Germans, Americans and so on.

Oktoberfest

Dubai, Airport

Typical Rickshaw

mosque in Bangalore

Hotel near UB City Mall