Festivals
The center of Hindu religious life is the home, and although usually people do simple acts of worship, certain occasions call for more elaborate worship. Here my landlord Uma Shankar Pandey is performing a fire sacrifice on Vijaya Dashami, the climactic tenth day after Navaratri, the "nine nights" of the Goddess. Such sacrifices (done by placing ghee-soaked grain in the fire) have their roots in the Brahmana literature over 2500 years ago.
The lunar month between Navaratri and Diwali--now called "festival season"--is the most ritually active time of the year.
Somavati Amavasya, a new moon on a Monday, is considered doubly auspicious. People came in droves to Haridwar to bathe in the Ganges on this day.
The fully clothed people bending over are searching for valuables that have been put into the water by the bathers.
Haridwar, Jan. 2005b
Although I like this picture of the motorcycle dairy, the real focus here is the tree behind it. One ritual on a Somavati Amavasya is to wind a spool (or spools) of thread around the trunk of a pipal tree (which is associated with Shiva). Since during the winding people walk around the tree many times (always clockwise), this counts as multiple acts of worship.
Haridwar, January 2005
Local people are intensely conscious of the ritual calendar, and how festival days can provide increased pilgrim traffic, and thus the potential for greater earnings. This trio of statues is on the old path to the Chandi Devi temple, and was normally completely untended. Yet they were lavishly decorated (including flower buds on the trident tips) on Chandi Chaudasa, the festival day for Chandi Devi, since The festival meant that large crowds would be going up to the temple.
Hardwar, October 1989
The full moon in March is the festival of Holi, which is what scholars of religion call as a "festival of reversal." During the morning of Holi, all social rules of polite behavior are suspended, and people spend most of their time throwing colored powder and water on each other. Some of these powders are incredibly indelible, some people have green or purple tinged skin for weeks afterward. In modern times the license with Holi (drinking, destruction of property, sexual harassment) has led many people to celebrate it quietly at home, and not to go out until the cosmic order is "restored" that afternoon.
Here's the Jai Shiv Band performing in a parade on the festival of Shivaratri in February 1990. Brass bands are a common element in Hindu festival life, and are often hired for weddings, processions, and just about any public "function." The bulk of a band's repertoire usually consists of tunes from the latest films (any Indian popular film has at least 10 songs and a couple of dance routines).