Holy Days

Fort Cochin, Easter Weekend

We arrived in Fort Cochin, a community comprised of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus, just in time for the Christian holidays of Good Friday and Easter, the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), and Hindu's Holi Festival. It was also Benjamin's birthday weekend, which is, of course, also considered a holy day to all of his fans.

Good Friday was our first full day in town, and almost everything was closed. I was surprised to be in a predominantly Hindu country, and inconvenienced by Christian traditions... but the state of Kerala boasts religious variety and tolerance, and all of India is deeply spiritual. Every Indian we met that weekend took great pains to wish us, "Happy Easter," assuming that every Westerner is Christian.

Good Friday also happened to fall upon the day Hindus celebrate Holi, a festival marking the beginning of spring. Though the Nothern states more commonly celebrate Holi, what with the heat and humidity in the South... where it's ALWAYS summer... No matter. As we sat on the beach sipping on a cool drink, we saw Holi victims stumble up to the water, laughing, with swaths of green and bright pink, yellow, and orange smeared all over their face, coloring their hair, streaked across their clothes.

The celebration of Holi, you see, involves throwing, wiping, grinding, and smearing colored chalk onto people, turning them into a living canvas for all colors of the rainbow to live upon, if just for one day. The Holi celbration spilled into the next day, as well -- Benjamin's birthday -- and we spent the evening at a Kathakali performance, me with a purple 5 o'clock shadow, Benjamin made up as a drag queen with hot pink cheeks. We'd been "attacked" by Holi revelers on our way to the theater...