I just realized I can put a color background to my text. This is the yellow color I was supposed to be wearing Day 1. I have since realized that I do have a shirt that is this color. It was even made in India. Very soft, nice cotton. But it was made for the US market, and it goes with jeans, and I didn’t bring it with me.
Day 7 was similar to the others, with a puja, or worship ceremony, in the morning. More of the out-of-town relatives had arrived, so the group was a little bigger. Every day after general prayers, there was much handling of fruit and flower, lighting of incense, sprinkling of holy water, little kids making faces when offered the holy cow pee to drink, and walking around to each of the four pillars holding up the canopy over the dais, handling more flowers, bringing the blessings to each person and back to the diety whose pillar it was. Then a short break, and everyone had to go outside of the tent to a special pole dedicated to Hanuman, an important Hindu diety who appears in the Ramayana, the modern portion (modern = a few thousand years old, not 5000 years old like the Vedas) of the Hindu scriptures. Hanuman is often shown with his chest opened and bleeding, similar to some Catholic depictions of Jesus. We handled fruit and flowers, while the sons of the deceased lit more incense, and broke some flat bread into small pieces for later consumption. We had to cross the rain control ditch, in bare feet, with multiple chunks of dirt and rocks, so that we were looking INTO the tent, while the junior priest, who did most of the chanting in the morning, fortunately, as his sense of musical tonality was better than the main priest’s, chanted the entire Hanuman Chalisa, a long story that is used as a prayer sacrifice. I definitely knew this drill by Day 7. Then when the Chalisa (this version goes on for almost 10 minutes) was over, we had to walk around the pole, again endangering my sensitive Americano feet, throwing the flowers onto the little altar at the base of the pole (no statue, as is shown in the link).
On Day 7 though, the Chalisa was followed by a procession to the house, to perform a fire sacrifice. The fire was HOT and the day was HOT and I felt sorry for the family members who were sitting right next to the fire. All sorts of things were tossed into the fire, but there was a big dish of what I presumed was pounded dry cow manure, mixed with chips of various woods and seeds. It produced quite a bit of smoke at times, and I was glad not to be sitting up close.
Well, tomorrow I am going shopping in Rishakesh for some gifts, and then I will be off to Delhi, to see the Jama Masjid, a huge, old, and famous mosque which I had hoped to see last year, and was prevented from visiting by the horrible Delhi traffic. Then I have one more day in Delhi for shopping, and back home. Following are a bunch of photos. I am glad to have attended this event.