Home page

A traditional meal of mango and channa (vegetable curry) was served on large pieces of suhari leaves.  There were no utensils but roti, an unleavened bread of many layers, was torn apart and used to pick up bites.

After dinner, we walked through the neighborhood, brightly lit both with electric lights and traditional deyas.  A deya is a small clay bowl or deep saucer filled with oil and a cotton wick.  Mud is used to keep the deyas on split bamboo.

Deyas lined the streets, placed on rails of split bamboo attached to bamboo posts.  Deyas were also set along stair rails, balconies, window ledges, and arranged on driveways, patios, and in yards.  A bamboo pole split five ways, each section bent over to the ground, had deyas placed on each of the curved sections.  Other frameworks also had deyas placed on them. 

Lighting the deyas was symbolic of lighting the light inside the soul.  Each house and  its lights  were an  individual  temple.

People walked through the streets dressed in their finest traditional clothing, women, teens and girls in long brightly colored dresses trimmed in gold with matching head veils.  Men wore loose fitting shirts or Nehru jackets.  We could see little girls twirling among the lights in their long skirts.  Indian music was played at some of the houses.