An elephant leads the Shivaratri procession

If you can do enlarge the rider for his beard is something to behold!

Satisfyingly exhausting day first walking down to the main bazaar to buy a friend a soft pillow. On the way I watched a goldsmith welding the fastener to a gold necklace by blowing through the thinnest of pipes into a gas flame and directing a thin stream of heat to the area to be joined it. I discovered the potters area again and sat watching a woman painting her huge water pots by gently rotating one as she balanced it on the rounded top of a broken pot and holding her brush against the surface. I found myself in a minute silver shop where lots of antique items were lying several layers deep. Vinod the owner eventually pulled aside a curtain and behold, another little Aladdin's cave full of ancient things like 200 year old powder horns – can you imagine the time it took to ready for a second shot at a tiger (perhaps the Maharana had several guns and men loading them)? Later I spent more time back with Vinod and learned about his family – after an arranged marriage his new wife continued her college education and became a teacher. She is now a headmistress and their two children are well on their way – the boy graduated as a bio-chemist although he isn't using it and the daughter now at university in the south of India. When they were small though he used to have them in the shop with him while his wife worked – interesting to hear that. I will return to show you something I found in the back store because there were too many shots I could have used today.

I watched a very long procession through the old part of the city which virtually closed down the main bazaar for all the shopkeepers and took hours to pass through - hundreds of orange turbaned men accompanied Shiva shrines for they will celebrate his wedding to Parvati tomorrow at the huge temples at Eklingee about 25k away and many will walk there overnight. It is called Shivaratri and is a time of fasting & pujas The procession was led by an elephant, then 2 camels pulling carts, then horses ridden by men with guns or swords, more orange scarved and turbaned walkers, musicians playing drums, cymbals and different horns, dancers, floats with shrines and people on them, more camels, jeeps with knife wielding occupants standing at the rear, more shrines with boy Shivas and girl Parvatis, music carts with loudspeakers (commonly used in wedding processions too), a silver panquin containing a Shiva Lingam and many more of the same. Boys with horrible looking guns set off fire crackers and none of the music was anything like the closely following one. No women were taking part and it moved ever so slowly because everyone stopped to dance or perform feats of strength or daring around which everyone crowded to watch. Fascinating.


Returning to my guest house I heard children singing and looked down from my balcony to the roof of the house 5 stories below (we are on a hillside). There is to be a family feast tonight and all the children of varying ages are dressed to the nines, girls in pretty sparkly dresses and the boys looking very smart. I just cannot imagine children at home spontaneously singing and dancing for one another – if one got up to do a dance, which is like telling a story, the others sat on the wall and watched until two or three others went and joined in. Then they changed over – it was all so charming and respectful and very beautiful to watch and hear.