Greece 2.0

As most of you know I have “a Greece story.” It’s a ridiculous tale. But it’s still my favorite memory from all my travels. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read up here.

Well … I didn’t think it was possible but I’ve topped it. I did it again … I danced with random strangers, hanging with the locals until late into the night. Basically this weekend was one for the books (or in this case, the blog). ** Warning I apologize for the novel... there was just too much to say**

Last blog post you heard a little bit about the festival season that took place in my city. It is a time for the natives to celebrate their Goddess. Informally, she is the Goddess of death and yet to honor her the people dance in the streets, they play the drums, sing, worship, eat food, and celebrate all day long until all hours of the night. The Pandels, temporary majestic structures built to house the idols, glitter mystically in the night air. The crowds ebb and flow together as one mass. Even the beggars get up and blissfully join in the revelry. The food and spices tempt you to forgo all inhibition to consume the meals prepared by hands never washed, on surfaces never cleaned and with water taken from the gutter you just stepped in (Yes, I eat street food. It’s my most note worthy accomplishment so far). And the children squeal with delight as men balance swords, swarms of people break into dance battles, merchants sell glorious gold adornment, and the priests pass out food once dedicated to the idols.

Per the tradition, on the fifth day of the festival the citizens gather to tear down their neighborhood idol, march down the streets with the idol in the bed of massive trucks, and dump them into the “holy” river. As the idol sinks into the water it symbolizes the Goddess leaving the people once again.

So my roommates and I were in a taxi coming back from Bollywood lessons when we noticed an unusual amount of traffic. The reason being, thousands of people were piling into the streets, marching to the haphazard beat of a hundred unskilled drummers banging their instruments arbitrarily yet ferociously. Likewise the mob followed along with equal intensity. Arms were swinging in the air. Feet were rapidly stomping the ground. People were laughing, yelping, singing and screaming to their heart’s desire.

So naturally my soul started to itch. My heart needed to join in this beauty. Also not surprisingly none of my roommates want to join. I tried to suppress the urge…

Like that has ever worked before…

Suddenly, without consent from my frontal lobe, my mouth started to yell to the taxi driver to pull over. My roommates freaked out. We were still in the middle of the street but I jumped out, grabbed my stuff and yelled over my shoulder that I would be back.

After sprinting across the street and climbing onto the center divider, I started to snap photos. Soon after, a couple local guys realized they were subjects of an anonymous photo shoot and subsequently decided to act like it.  They ran up to me posing, jumping, flailing and floundering like wild dogs just released from confinement.

At this point I was still safely on my center divider and old men were holding back the others, shouting at them not to touch me. (Great example of this in the photo to the right).

So the crowd reverted to Plan B and beckoned me to join in the dance.

At first my superego was fighting desperately to keep some sort of control of the situation and I hung back out of harms way. People were coming up, asking for their portrait but then leaving before I could even hit the button (resulting in many dark, blurry photos).  However, as I realized that these people just wanted to celebrate, dance and enjoy their sacred festival, I started to cowboy up. 

I made my way to the center of the crowd and began to sway to the beat of the drum. Upon seeing the white girl try to dance to Indian beats, the women clapped their hands together and laughed, roared, squawked or squealed … (sorry but there are just no equivalent sounds to relate this to.)

Point being, I became an instant celebrity.

A woman then grabbed my hand and motioned for me to move my body like hers. That’s when I really gave in. I had to prove I knew what I was doing. I got down and busted out my Bollywood moves with some freestyle thrown in on the side. They went crazy.

One man looked me in the eye and asked, “Are you happy?” (Code for “Do you feel safe”) I answered DUH. He said, “If you’re happy; I am happy.’ He then recruited two other men to literally push the crowd back, creating a foot of space between myself and everyone else like I was president of the United States.  So now not only was I dancing and spinning in the middle of the street in the middle of the night, I was doing so by myself with hundreds of South Asians starring at me.

The crowds literally stopped moving. The marching ceased. The cars turned off their engines. All eyes were on me. (I’m not trying to be egotistical here. This is just plain fact.) And one by one someone would break into my celebrity circle, take my hands, and teach me a new dance move. Once their turn was done, the next would break through, push the other aside and once again teach me to dance. This happened probably 10 times as everyone was laughing and chanting on the side.

As I started to loose steam, I simply turned, motioned to the crowd and yelled to the hundreds of people watching, “Let’s keep moving!” Without hesitation everyone started walking again and the march continued.

I could go on forever trying to describe what it was like. But the best I can do is say that it was pure ecstasy. I have never seen so much energy and delight wrapped up in one event before. Never again will I use the word celebration so lightly. This was a true party.

About a half an hour later I remembered my roommates were most likely sitting at home terrified and praying over my safety (which was entirely accurate). So I made my way out of the crowd, which took another 15 minutes because I had to stop, and bow or shake hands to every person along the way.

Finally I broke free, stopped, turned around, waved to all two hundred faces starring back at me, and continued on home.

As they turned the corner down the road and the drums started to fade into the distance, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. Not only do I continue to survive these precarious situations, I somehow manage to have self-designated bodyguards protecting me through them.

But there is one point I must make sure you understand. The reason why I do the things I do, is not simply for the adventure. I am an outsider. I am white and I speak English. But that does not mean I need to create more barriers than the ones already put in place. My job is to break barriers, not build them up. This festival means the world to this culture, and by participating I started to speak their language. For that brief moment I was part of them. I understood them and they understood me. I honored them by dancing the way they did, by acknowledging their drums, by contributing to their joy. 

How long will we cower in fear of the ‘other’? Because the second you break free from that fear you cease to be separated by trivial matters of culture and finally can embrace each other as the brothers and sisters we were designed to be.

So I can’t say that I regret these moments. God has created me to dance. And so I will. It’s what makes life so exciting. It’s what makes life worth living.