Late Sunday night the Thottanoval Village (the village that I am living in this summer) had their annual god festival. Each village worships a different Hindu god and the village is required to celebrate their god on an annual basis in a festival. There is no designated time for the holiday it just occurs when the village people feel it is time to celebrate. This past Sunday was the Thottonaval’s celebration and so late Sunday night all of the Rising Star workers and volunteers followed the dirt road further down the village to watch and enjoy the traditional Indian festivities. The festival started around 10 p.m. with several men sitting on a tractor decorated with brightly colored flowers. In front of the tractor stood a group of men dressed in neon pink hot pants and drummers dancing and singing to the beat of their own drums. As the tractor would drive down the village road passing the various huts and houses the women would walk out of their homes in their tightly tied sari’s and offer a sacrifice of coconut, bananas and leaves to the ornately decorated tractor. It was very interesting watching the women come out and pay homage to their village god, it also made me upset. The men were running the ceremony, the men got to be out and dancing but the women had one job. They got to briefly leave their small home, offer the sacrifice and shortly after go back inside their small house while the men continued dancing and singing. In many large cities India is changing but in the villages many of the traditional practices are still very much set in place. Many of these practices are beautiful but others seem very foreign and rather archaic. For example, the women often times are not allowed to leave their home once they have been married unless it is on household errands such as getting water from the well or picking up food from the local market. My heart goes out to Indian woman and the gender inequality that takes place in many places here in India. My heart goes out to the lonely lives that many of them must lead, especially those in the colonies. My heart goes out to the millions of Indian woman who are rapped, abused and burned to death in kitchen fires. My heart goes out to these women and as I stood and watched this ceremony take place I was amazed at the beauty of the colors, the mystery of the music and could not help myself from feeling frustrated that I am not doing more when there is so much to be done to help these women. After receiving my first henna tattoo for the summer I sat and watched some the festival dances and was overcome with gratitude for the many blessings that I have been given just by the color of my skin and my nationality. I feel immensely blessed to be a woman living in America with freedoms and opportunity to think and act for myself. I can wear what I want, I can go to school and study whatever I choose, I can choose my friends and when I want to eat I can eat. I have so many opportunities at my disposal and I feel extremely blessed and overwhelmed at the inequality that still stands in even this the 21st century.
Thousands of Tiny Miracles 