Ramlila

It's festival time here in Delhi, folks! We're in the middle of the Hindu holiday Navratri. To the outsider like me it's a rather confusing holiday, so I'm not going to even begin to try to explain it (Wikipedia can handle that). Suffice it to say that it's a big holiday celebrated differently in different regions of India. Because Delhi draws people from across the country, there are a lot of different celebrations going on. And this means that there are a TON of fun goings-on to check out.

Tonight I ventured into Old Delhi to see a procession of floats depicting the gods/characters from the story of Lord Ram, one of the Hindu gods. His story is important to (the basis of?) the holiday (and back to our trusty online resource for a more extensive explanation). It was a festive experience filled with music and lights. It was not dissimilar from a parade in the U.S., though the floats were all trailed by noisy generators to power the lights and at least one float was towed by an ox. Because we're not as familiar with the story of Ram as we clearly should be, my friends and I didn't always know what was going on. Luckily, the friendly people standing around us offered explanations for each new float.

I tried to take capture some photos of the parade but I clearly haven't figured out night photography yet. Regardless, here are a few shots from the evening.

Either the good guy or the bad guy. The bad guy, maybe?