Happy Birthday Krishna

Today is the festival of Janmastami, or the celebration of Krishna's birth. As the story goes, Krishna was quite a naughty young boy. He would run around breaking the clay pots filled with freshly churned butter that the ladies would hang high in the air outside their homes. To celebrate his birth, large clay pots filled with curds, honey and money are hung high above the streets, sort of suspended across the streets, really. They are very colorfully decorated and strewn with flowers. Large groups of young men, and more recently groups of young women, band together (after practicing at length) all over town to form giant pyramids in hopes of reaching the pots and breaking them. If they are so lucky as to reach the pot, they must break it with their hands and the contents comes tumbling down all over the crowd. I was fortunate enough to be able to witness this festive event. Shyamala invited me to her apartment in Mulund Colony where such a pot was suspended about seven stories, yes seven, in the air. We watched (from the balcony) for quite some time as group after group tried to reach that amazing height. No one made it. You can imagine how nuts this gets as the pyramid gets higher and higher....the base of the pyramid is huge, about 40-50 people and obviously someone very litte, ususally a child, is the one climbing the highest! It was crazy. There is a lot of room for injury especially if the whole thing comes tumbling down. There was one ambulance run while we were there. This event takes place all over Mumbai and often the groups travel in huge buses from one site to the next hoping for success. Apparently not all the pots are seven stories high either. This event goes on well into the night.
After we had our fill of spectating, we decided to go get some chai. On the way, we passed a Jain temple and went in. The temple was amazing, all marble, and there was the most serene feeling throughout. Jainism is an offshoot of Hinduism and Buddhism. They are such peaceful people that they often wear a facemask so as not to harm even an insect. They eat no animal byproducts or even anything that is a root. Amazing. That is obviously a very, very brief overview as I am not a religious expert!
The temples in India really capture the spirit of the country. They are so peaceful and beautifully decorated. I look forward to exploring more.