Festivals In India by Aiden

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We have been in India for a few festivals now. In India they have a holy Trinity but it is a bit different to the Christian one. They have The Creator, The Destroyer (of evil)/Liberator and the Protector who looks after the earth after it's been created. Shiva is the destroyer/liberator so they have a festival to Shiva once a year here. When it was Shivaratri, Mum and Dad stayed up all night for it. I stayed up for some and then woke up early to see the end of it. There is usually lots of food at Indian festivals but this one was fasting before and lots of eating after. There is usually good sweets too. Grandpa would love it!

Holi festival was another festival we had. We went to Jodhpur when it was close to the Holi festival and there were lots of people selling all sorts of coloured powder. We didn’t get coloured but lots of the kids in my class did and their skin was died red or purple or green for many days after Holi. We had a good water fight though. Now it is summer here we have them quite a lot in the kitchen grounds.

A week after Holi festival, we had another festival. It is a cooling festival. We get ready for the hot of summer and remember one of the Indian Holy People who they say gives the pox. If you celebrate this festival and don’t do any cooking on this day, then you are protected for the whole year and won’t get the pox. The cooks in our kitchen and everywhere else in India, were very busy the day before this festival. They cook extra food and lots of chip type things, a bit like rice crackers, so we could have lots of food for the day you eat cool food. We even had icecream for sweets because we had a going away party for someone. They have a tradition here that when you leave the Ashram here you buy icecream and have a party on the eating veranda. Think about that. I was eating icecream in the desert! It is awesome icecream. My favourite flavour here is butterscotch.

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