{"id":1686,"date":"2015-11-25T19:50:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1686"},"modified":"2015-11-25T19:50:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:50:29","slug":"harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-november-25-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/harold-jaffes-dispatches-from-india-november-25-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Harold Jaffe’s Dispatches from India<\/em> – November 25, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ganges Dusk<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Wake up to drums and loud chanting.
\n6:20 AM. Is it a dream?
\nHere one wakes from dream into dream.
\nEvery other day is a holy day in Kashi.
\nAnother devotional festival.
\nToday is Dev Diwali.<\/p>\n

But didn\u2019t we celebrate Diwali, Festival of Lights, just a few
\ndays ago?
\nThat Diwali was devoted to the goddess Lakshmi, Lord Vishnu\u2019s
\nconsort.
\nDev Diwali is devoted to Lord Shiva\u2019s victory over the demon
\nTripurasur.<\/p>\n

On Dev Diwali, which always coincides with a full moon, devotees
\ntake a bath and\/or a boat ride in the Ganga, light oil lamps, called
\nDiyas, do puja, set off fireworks, and make lots of noise.
\nDevotional noise.
\nWhen the sun sets, the steps of all the Ghats and temples are alight
\nwith Diyas, milllions of them.
\nMillions?
\nYes. Everything becomes exponential in India.<\/p>\n

It is Dev Diwali, full moon, and I\u2019m in an old open boat on the sacred
\nGanga.
\nAs soon as the moon comes up in the east through the mist the
\ndrums start romping and the oil lamps are lit on each of the 87 ghats
\nfrom south to north.
\nEverywhere is elaborately patterned bright light.
\nExcept for the two burning ghats which continue cremating corpses,
\nsmoke curling over the Ganga.
\nFire and water are the two dominant elements for devotional Hindus.<\/p>\n

The east where the moon rises is composed of a single sandbar,
\nconstruction prohibited because it would interfere with viewing the
\nthe sunrise.
\nThe Mughals ruled India for nearly 200 years, did not worship the
\nGanga, and razed most of the ancient temples and other Hindu
\nstructures on the western ghats.
\nIt is a surprise that they did not erect their own structures on the
\nwide empty sandbar.<\/p>\n

The moon is full.
\nChanting, music, fireworks, millions of oil lamps and a million or
\nmore souls on each of the 87 ghats raucously celebrating.
\nThough Lord Shiva is nominally the subject of Dev Diwali, I do not
\nhear his name invoked in the chants.<\/p>\n

I think of carnival among the impoverished, in the Brazil favelas for
\nexample.
\nA week of sensual-samba-masquerade-mania a year, then back to
\nshitty bad-paying work, or no work at all.
\nIn the holy Hindu city of Kashi, the carnival (without the sensuality of
\ncourse) goes on throughout the year, so that devotion is turned into
\nan opiate which keeps the millions of impoverished and low-castes
\nperpetually celebrating.
\nThen they go home to their squalor.<\/p>\n

I notice how many of the poor celebrants snap photos with their
\nmobile, fulfilling the Prime Minister\u2019s extravagant lunacy of elevating
\nthe afterimage in the process of digitalizing India.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/jaffeantijaffe.sdsu.edu\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jaffeantijaffe<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/haroldjaffe.wordpress.com\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ganges Dusk Wake up to drums and loud chanting. 6:20 AM. Is it a dream? Here one wakes from dream into dream. Every other day is a holy day in Kashi. Another devotional festival. Today is Dev Diwali. But didn\u2019t we celebrate Diwali, Festival of Lights, just a few days ago? That Diwali was devoted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1687,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions\/1687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fictioninternational.sdsu.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}