India Holiday

February 23, 2009
Monday is indeed a holiday. Sreenath came to visit and explained it.

It is for worshiping Shiva for swallowing the poison that came out of the snake during the churning of the milk sea. If he had not swallowed the poison, then it would have fallen to Earth and everyone would have died. Shiva didn’t die from the poison since his wife squeezed his throat. The poison is still stuck in his neck which makes it blue.

Main Shiva temples are the one we went to at Ernakulam and the other one is up in Aluva. There will be pujas throughout the day on Monday and then everyone stays up all night. I don’t know how they will function at work on Tuesday.

The festival we went to two weeks ago was their annual festival. It wasn’t for any particular event. Every temple has a yearly festival at different times, but usually they are between November and March (which corresponds to the best weather here).

Steven