3/7/05-- Sivaratri

The Barber

I was up off and on all night, but managed to be away around 4ish. My wake up call came at 5 a.m. and I ordered coffee which was delivered and served by 2 men. Not used to this type of service. The barber was only a few minutes late and I sat in the "shower" while he sat on a small stool that is kept in the hotel shower for reasons that are unknown to me. Perhaps you are supposed to sit down when you wash your feet.

The best discovery of all is that there is hot water at 5:00 a.m. For those of you who do not know my predilections, I tend to take VERY hot showers with almost no cold water at all, so you can just imagine the hair raising events that have transpired the past several days. Note to self &endash; take cold showers in preparation for the next trip to India.

The shave took approx half an hour. Some of you will be rather pleased as he not only shaved my head and face, but he shaped my eyebrows, trimmed nose and ear hair . . . Something I did not know is that Indian men shave their arm pits and chest. I managed to catch him before he went too far. I'm not quite used to the face staring back at me in the mirror. This is the first time that I have seen all of it in approximately 14 years.

The driver did not arrive this morning, so I took an autorickshaw myself and now that I know where the house is, I managed to get us there albeit a little late. The priests all love the new look or perhaps they just appreciate the spirit in which the hair was offered. This was a big thing for me. I'm rather attached to my fur.

Anyway, it will take some getting used to, although I will probably start growing it back immediately!!

The puja today was pretty incredible. Seetharama asked me to bring extra clothing and I assumed that it was because I we were going to head out to the Temples from there. Apparently all of the Temples here are open all night and I learned that what you do in Kanchi is worth 100 times what is done elsewhere, so there is special significance to doing events here today. We are going to try to hit as many of them as possible tonight. It should be horridly crowded until approx midnight then will thin considerably which is a good thing. Crowded by American standards is nothing at all to what crowded in India means.

The Sivaratri puja uses 11 collosums (waterpots). The religious ceremonies are performed and the water is charged up with blessings. There are herbs and other things in the water. The reason for the extra clothes is that we were "bathed" or rather soaked with the water after the puja was completed. It was quite the experience and oddly enough despite feeling rather under the weather yesterday, I feel pretty revved up despite some lack of sleep and fasting. Fasting here consists of no solid food. So, I've had coffee, fruit juice, horlicks (which is the name brand of a wheat drink that kids are given), and what was sort of a cream of wheat but with more milk and some sweetener. Needless to say, with all of the sugar, I'm not hungry in the slightest. However, although I am supposed to be resting at the moment, I'm not permitted to nap. Gotta stay up until at least dawn the get some food before catching a bit of sleep.

India6