Celebrating Durga Puja at home

So I mentioned in the previous post that we were invited to celebrate Durga Puja on Sunday at the home of one of Allen's fellow tabla students...

He didn't just invite us - he invited all the students that had come with us the night before, which was amazingly generous. Three other students joined us to go to this family home in the old part of the city.

Again, I don't really know what any of us had been expecting, but India surprised us yet again.

The family home, which had been established by Shiva's grandfather, and was attached to the first Bengali temple in the area, of which he was the establishing priest. The temple is dedicated to Kali, the goddess of time and change, and it right off the main courtyard of the family home. So immediately upon arrival we were ushered in to celebrate a puja with various community members. Shortly afterward we were ushered upstairs for lunch.

Before I begin the description of lunch (which was amazing), I'll note something we didn't realize till we finally departed about an hour and a half later: being that this was the community temple the family was hosting puja and lunch for everyone in the community ... so as we were leaving more people were streaming in, sort of a revolving door of worshipers. I'm having a hard time thinking of good equivalent - best I can suggest is it was like those huge Italian Sunday brunches we have some times had in South Jersey, where people come in, people go out, but there is always tons of wonderful food and merrymaking.

Just imagine the vast quantities of food that were necessary for this arrangement and it is not hard to imagine that they had (apparently, because I didn't see it otherwise there would be a picture of it) bathtub sized pots for cooking in the back ... knowing this will help you better understand how the food was then served ...

But I digress ... what was really important was the generosity of spirit in this moment. This family, who have shown their friendship and camaraderie through a simple tabla class, opened their home to us strangers to share with them and their community a wonderfully holy and friendship-forging event. I feel like I'm not articulating myself well; but I'm finding it hard to put into words the feeling of openness and affection that I've witnessed in my short time here. I don't want to say that it was hard to accept this very generous hospitality - but it really touched me, and to show our thankfulness for all of their generosity, I was able to give them pictures and video from their son's performance the previous evening... a gift that was most graciously received.

OK - on the the description of the meal: an amazing veg (vegetarian) with all the staples - dhal, potatoes, and green vegetables, with a rice pudding for dessert ....but the true novelty of the experience was of eating off banana leaf plates with our fingers (check out the slide show below, link here):



All of the worshipers were lined up cross-legged along the wall, each with a 'plate' in front of him/her, and several gentlemen with large silver buckets were walking around dolling out dollops of food onto our plates ... if they saw you getting low on anything they came back and asked if you wanted more ... the food was piping hot and we learned that to cool it down you had to gingerly stick your fingers in and spread the small pyramid out on your plate.

I can imagine what your thinking: "Why?! after you both got so sick would you do something so potentially risky!?"

Good question: I guess our guts said it seemed OK.

No really, I think we all collectively agreed after the fact that we couldn't imagine another space where we would have felt comfortable enough to eat in this manner, coming so recently off of some pretty miserable eating experiences. But everything seemed above board and given especially how scalding hot all the food was when it was placed on our plates, we all left feeling the meal had been properly prepared.

The family happily invited us all back for Diwali in mid-October, so who knows, we may be back again soon (hopefully).