rockets red glare
November 3rd, 2008Last Tuesday Indians celebrated the equivalent of their new year – Divali. Just like our Christmas, the country takes off between three days and a week for the celebrations. As we flew in this morning I could see many houses and apartments were still strung with blinking lights in celebration. Tonight, I’m falling asleep to a left over fireworks display about one half mile away through my window.
So that we didn’t completely miss the celebrations, the team greeted us at the office this morning with bouquets of flowers and a ceremonial brow painting and rice toss. I’m not sure what the etiquette is, but I tolerated the red smear on my brow for most of the day, rushing to clean it off as soon as I stepped back into my room this evening. Hopefully they won’t be too shocked to see our bindi smears missing in the morning.