Mock Disney World in the Heart of Madurai

It's the Muslim holiday of Bakri Eid on Monday, which means we're having another three-day weekend. When you live in a multicultural country such as India, this is what your holiday calendar looks like: http://festivals.iloveindia.com/festival-calendar.html. Although we can always use another holiday, we anticipate our kids will be running loose for three days straight. As our daily 10am-12pm power outage rolls in, the kids' movie stops working and we have to get them out of the house ASAP.

Eial consults his handy list of must-see places in Madurai and we head off to Children's park. It's either that, or the Gandhi museum, as both are in the same place and we're hoping one of them is open. We are in luck today since the Children's park is indeed open for business. It looks green, shady, and it has slides - that's all we need to burn off some energy.

We start off by exploring various slides and climbing structures. They are not the safe kind that we're used to in the US (where you expect moderate height, enclosed top areas and padded ground) but our kids obviously don't mind. All three of them are avid climbers. As usual, we attract immediate attention as street kids approach us in droves, and families curiously check us out from a safe distance. Eial and me are used to this by now, the kids are oblivious to what's going on.

Then we realize that this is actually an amusement park with operating rides. It takes us a minute to figure things out, for example, we find out that each ride has a separate ticket booth. The price for each ride is nominal, and we're off to some crazy spinning. We even get on a mini-train ride where the attractions to see are sculptures of animals. Only in India, streets are full on live animals, yet in the amusement park you get amused by... sculptures?

By popular demand, we head off to Ferris wheel (called the Big Wheel, over here). I think the only reason we went on this ride was because we had no idea what we were in for. On an Indian Ferris wheel you are seated in an open cabin with simple metal hook latches on both sides. There are no seatbelts or anything of that sort, you simply hold on to your seat. Once the wheel starts going up it accelerates to the speed of a swing. It was more of an unsecured roller-coaster ride that kept spinning and spinning in a circle. I got pretty freaked out when I realized what was going on. Maya and an Indian boy sitting in our cabin where both happy and smiling. I could see Raphael's face in misery in a cabin which was at the opposite end of the wheel. As I was passing by an operator I asked him to stop the damn thing. We did another five rounds, and he sure stopped the wheel so I could get off, but that left Eial with two boys hanging at the highest point. The Ferris wheel was a big hit with Maya, but it was more of a ride from hell for me. We will see if we ever do this again, although Maya doesn't know it yet.

Unfortunately our camera battery died as we were having some post-ride recovery ice cream, but our exploring wasn't over yet. We did end up visiting Gandhi museum which was a beautiful and impressive white building. Yinon called it a castle. We discovered an Institute of Gandhian thought and Eial learned it only takes a year to get a degree in Gandhian philosophy, or yoga, or multicultural religion. He is always up for picking up another degree.  It is only thirty dollars a semester to study there, but unfortunately the instruction is only in Tamil.

We ended our excursion at the Big Chick, a local chicken fast food establishment kind of like KFC. The food is made from fresh chicken. We know this for a fact because we saw a lady arrive by rickshaw with a fresh batch of meat in a black plastic bag. We finally got home in the late afternoon. Eial and I were beat, but not our kids, they just kept going...

Two awesome giraffes welcome you to the park

Checking things out before taking off to three different directions

Families and friends enjoying a lazy afternoon in the park

Do you recognize these characters?

How about these ones?

Should we send a kid down the slide to give this gentleman a good kick in the head?

Enjoying an upside down world

The boys saw a camera in my hand and immediately asked for a picture

Between two camera shots the number of kids on the slide multiplied

Yinon is on the kiddie climbing structure

Watching as an empty ride goes by

Who can resist a spinning dragon?

More park sleepers. Who are they, workers, night guards, drunks?

Waiting for our train to start chugging

On a train ride

Ah, we spotted some camels

Looks like a zebra

There is drama in the river - a crocodile and a tiger

We are approaching a lion scene

Ticket booth and entrance to the Ferris wheel 

Eial, Raphael and Yinon are somewhere on top

 

Getting off the ride as fast as they can

  

A cabin up-close

After an ice cream break all is good again

Diwali In Its Full Glory

My last Diwali post was a little premature as I haven't seen anything yet. As soon as it got darker, the sounds of fireworks started getting louder and louder. Yinon ran to me shivering like a leaf and jumped in place every time we heard a load "boom". It literally sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone. It dawned on me that cracking noises leading up to tonight were just a kiddie game. We must be getting the real deal now.

Diwali must be the reason Indian homes are built without glass windows as they wouldn't last one celebration. Also, because the windows are always open you hear every pop and sound as if it was happening in the middle of your living room.

Soon Raphael came running to get me saying that I am missing something really really fun. Off we go to the upper roof. Here we see the most amazing sight. The whole town is exploding in colorful random spontaneous fireworks shot by families from the rooftops of their houses. Wow, it literally feels like we are part of the fireworks show as they are exploding all around us. All of the sudden the sound does not seem so scary any more as we can see where it originates from. We're taking it all in, big grins on our faces. Maya and Raphael are besides themselves from excitement. They are also quite disappointed that we don't have any firecrackers left. I am quietly grateful for that. Yinon is still shivering and needs to be held.

This it the real freedom, declares Eial. Do whatever you want, fire up whatever you want, with your own family, on your own rooftop. Diwali is a festival of lights after all. And what a way to start a New Year.

Sights and Sounds of Diwali!

Happy Deepawali as they say it here in the South! Diwali is one of the most important holidays in India, it is of similar stature as Christmas in the Western world. I was warned by Mutamma yesterday that everything will be closed today. And yes indeed, all the busyness has stopped. Everyone took a day off and slept in while taking in the cool air of a rainy morning. Only the lonely milkman, plastic bag on his head to protect him from raindrops, pedaled by on his usual morning route and delivered our milk packs at 6:30am. I felt really bad for his no-days-off occupation and was hoping he will be able to take the rest of the day off. I guess you can't have a holiday if you're out of fresh milk, a major ingredient for Indian tea and sweets.

This actually is my first Diwali in India so it was very interesting to observe what was happening around. I was of an impression that Diwali is a festival of lights and that everyone lights lots of candles outside their door. Eial tells me this custom is only observed in the North, we did not see any candle lighting here. What we did see and hear was constant fireworks and firecrackers, shot from every possible angle and direction. There were plenty of them that seemed to be exploding right over our roof. The kids were terrified of the sound in the beginning, but it's the third day of this cracking noise and they are getting used to it. Even more so after Eial brought home a present he received at work, a fancy box of "colorful and soundless" fireworks. Kids were determined to get them tested, and finally, on day three, we finished an assortment of over 100 sparkling fireworks.

Since we were somewhat stuck at home today, we went for a walk around our neighborhood. We saw lots of kids and young adults firing up crackers and fireworks. We also saw families dressed in their best fancy outfits visiting friends and family members. Gift giving is another traditional aspect of the holiday, which we don't know much about. We had purchased a gift sari for Mutamma, our only employee. Other than that we were clueless of who and what to gift. We received sweets and treats from Eial's work and our wonderful neighbor Mr. Selvakumar. Hopefully next year we will be more knowledgeable of how to be part of the Diwali celebration.

Here are some photos that we took during the last couple days:

A gift? For us?

Eial was pulled out of unsuccessful nap to get the fireworks started

Maya is fleeing as fast as she can

Festive celebration at the boys school on Tuesday. Traditional "kolam" design is made out of rice powder 

Colors of "kolam" powder

A white kolam at the entrance to the boys school

In the mean time Maya is out of school this week. She is peeking to see what's happening at the Maruthu Rukmani school across from us

We zoom in to get a better view. There is a flower and candle design in the center, and even some fireworks

We climb over to the upper roof to get a better view of the celebration in the school yard

A robot dance to the traditional Indian music

We zoom in the camera to see the robots up close

Girls join in the dance

Young dancers leaving the stage

Happy Diwali wishes to Mutamma

"Fancy sari" says Mutamma as she discovers red edge on the sari fabric

Day 2 of the fireworks. Very windy and we can't keep a match lit

A little boy joins in the firework fun

Everyone is cheering Eial as he struggles get the flame started

We're half-way done 

Watching the fireworks from the upper roof

A stroll around our neighborhood

Maya's friends up the street have been firing things up for few days now

We're greeted by a load explosion

The girls are dressed in traditional clothes, their hair is adorned with flowers and their hands are painted in hena

I liked this original kolam greeting at someone's doorsteps

Streets are littered with scraps of paper from firecrackers

Day 3, kids insist we finish the fireworks

Watching at safe distance

Yinon is more interested in observing a butterfly and he keeps telling me that a butterfly is in its cage

Oops, the butterfly got out of its cage, says Yinon

Here is our little friend from yesterday

Last four pieces

A little boy's father shows up to give Eial some pointers. Good thing we finished the box. Happy Diwali everyone!