Lakh Batti a Ceremony

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A Hundred Thousand Splendid SunsSunday, February 9 was a momentous occasion for my family. We held a lakhbatti (lakmeans a hundred thousand,and battimeans light). As I understand it, lakh batti is an offering to the Hindu gods to as for !ros!erity through the year. Formy family, it was an e"!ensi#e, meaningful family affair. For me, it was mostly wearing, confusing, and at times o#erwhelming,with a few highlights s!rinled in.

$e!alis often don%t smile in !hotos, but I can assure you they%re e"cited for the day&

're!arations began about a wee before the e#ent, with large grou!s of women coming to the house to mae hundredsof thapadis, bowls fashioned out of lea#es used for doingpuja(an act of worshi!) and eatingprasad(food ser#ed at the end ofapuja. ne of the older women taught me how to mae them by stitching sli#ers of wood through a !air of lea#es. y first twoattem!ts were laughable, but my third one was good enough that my host mother !ut it in the stac with the all the others.


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When the ambulance dri#er arri#ed late one night with se#eral sacs of sugar, salt, and rice, I new it was going to be big. A few

days later, I came home from wor to find a large mud shrine erected in our courtyard.


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Family members began arri#ing the day before thepuja. I was busy much of the day, but in the e#ening chi!!ed in by

maing maalas(garlands) with the women, threading white string through the stems of marigolds. I met three more of mysisters, their families, and a number of more distant relati#es.


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n the day of the ceremony, I awoe at *+*A to the sounds of my family. I fell bac to slee! and arose at -+/. 0Why did you

slee! in so late12 ased my bauju(brother3s wife) when I emerged from my room. I set to hel!ing out with the !re!arations,hel!ing clear some land for the coo fires. Soon we got a few fires going, o#er which we !laced enormous !ots to coo!otatoes, kir(rice !udding with coconut), and aluwai(a sweet cornmeal and sugar mi"ture, ind of lie bread !udding).eanwhile, women bent o#er rolling !ins and wos, rolling out dough for puri(slightly !uffed, dee!4fried flatbread) ands5uee6ing out rings of sel roti (an oily, sweet donut). Along with much of my host family, I decided to fast for the morning, beingtold that we would eat around noon. In the coming hours, as noon became , then , and finally 7 in the e#ening, I would beginto 5uestion my show of solidarity.


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S!otting a grou! of men !eeling !otatoes, I saw an o!!ortunity to tal some nutrition. I sat down, grabbed a !otato, and ased

why they were remo#ing the !eels. 08hey3re not good for health,2 said one of them, a teacher. 08he sin is the healthiest !art ofa !otato,2 I re!lied. 08hat3s where all the #itamins and minerals are.2 0Well, they taste bad. ou can eat them, if you want,2someone said. So I ate a bit of the sin I3d remo#ed. 0$ow the whole !otato is jutho (im!ure)&2 they cried. 0ou ha#e to throw itaway or eat it.2 So I ate the rest. 0$ow you3#e broen your fast&2 they e"claimed. Frustrated that my attem!t to teach hadbacfired, I stormed off to find some other wor. $ow a grou! of women were !lacing bundles of short holy threads di!!edinghyu (clarified butter) intapadis: these threads when lit, would become the lak batti.


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A few females were smearing diluted cow dung on the shrine and ground to fill in the cracs.


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Some guys around my age were setting u! a bunch of metal !oles for a tent, so I went o#er to hel! with that. Some of my

ne!hews and neighbors used this as a !hoto o!.


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8he !riests (nine of them, many from the same family) soon arri#ed and set to adorning the shrine with designs of colored!owder and rice. ;arge thapadisof rice, barley, and other offerings were !laced in the shrine.


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Sensing that the ceremony would soon begin, I changed into my formal clothes, the traditional $e!ali daura surwal. 8his

delighted my friends and family, and I was feeling !retty good myself


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>ust before the ceremony began, my host sister !ulled me aside and informed me that at the start, only the true 8ha!as (my

family3s last name) would be doing thepujaofferings. ?#en three of my host sisters would not be !artici!ating, as they hadchanged their names when they married. A little bit later, e#eryone else so inclined would be allowed to dopuja. After a fewminutes of my family3s ownpuja, I was instructed to mae my way to the shrine. I was seated ne"t to a twel#e4year4old banja (sister3s son) whom I hadn3t met before that morning. It seemed to be his firstpuja too, because he was @ust asconfused as I about what to do. Silently, we e"changed 5uestions of !rocedure in furti#e glances at each other. Should we throwthe red rice now1 How many times1 How high1 , now it loos lie we should tae a flower, !our some water on it, and clas! itbetween our hands in !rayer. $ow we should throw it on the shrine. Wait, was I su!!osed to toss it whole or brea it into !etalsfirst1


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After sitting cross4legged on the ground for two hours, listening to a language I didn3t understand and !erforming acts that meantnothing to me, the sun burning my face from the front and a fire heating my bac from behind, I couldn3t tae it much longer. Anaunt informed me that I could get u! and wal around whene#er I wanted, so I mo#ed into the shade to meet my friends. I hadin#ited all the #olunteers in my district, two of whom (aria and hristine) were able to attend. I !ointed out my familymembers to them, and we chatted for a while. A considerable crowd had begun to gather, many of whom were community

members I new.

I s!ent the ne"t few hours going bac and forth between chatting with crowd members and sitting behind my family. 8he !riestsread aloud !rayers from a boo in Sansrit through a micro!hone. At one !oint, my host mother ga#e gifts to the !riests andco#ered their heads with !in tika. At last, my family began assembling the leaf !lates of thread by the shrine. Soon a !riestinstructed them to light them on fire, !ic them u! off the ground, and wal around the shrine. I too was handed a flaming leaf!late and ushered into the !rocession. We circled the shrine se#eral times, the bla6e blowing in our faces and gradually burningthrough the bowls of lea#es. An older woman behind me nearly set my slee#e on fire, but I was sa#ed by an attenti#e aunt. I!assed my !late off and too a seat. Bisions of disaster, of !eo!le afire and a shrine consumed by inferno, flashed across mymind, but my fears were 5uelled as the last of the !artici!ants made their way to the front of my house to discard their fieryloads.


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$ow the guests floced to the tent to eat. It seemed lie a natural culmination, but the worshi!!ers resumed their seats andthepuja continued.

After some more time, the !artici!ants mo#ed sit around the ditch I3d dug that morning. 8here was more tika, puja, and otherthings beyond my gras!. Finally, the worshi!!ers gathered under a long !iece of thin white cloth, a !riest scattered water o#er

their heads, and the ceremony was o#er, @ust o#er si" hours after it began.


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As e#ening fell, I broe my fast with the sweet treats that had been !re!ared in the morning. 8hree men !erformed a traditionaldance, two of them dressed as women, while two others sang and !layed drums. A larger dance circle formed on the o!!ositeside of the shrine, where indi#iduals or !airs of women too turns dancing to a 5uicening song. I was hustled too and fro byfriends and relati#es, told to sit down, come here, go there, and, abo#e all, dance. Soon I was thrust into the circle and got rightdown to it. y older host brother and younger ne"t4door4neighbor brother @oined me for a few rounds, and then I declared I was

done. I ate some more and watched others dance but was hassled by those who hadn3t seen me and demanded I gi#e them a!erformance. When my friend hristine was dancing, my host sister told me our mother insisted that I dance with her, so Ireentered the circle and we danced, twirling our arms and shuffling our feet to the rhythm of the music. 8he ne"t morning, myhost mother would tell me she had said no such thing, and was disa!!ointed she hadn%t gotten to see me dance.

I consider myself #ery lucy to li#e in such a welcoming community, but a !erson can only tolerate so much attention. As thenight wore on, I felt my com!osure and #igor waning. Incons!icuously, I duced out of the crowd and shut myself in my room.Slee! came as the drums beat on.

Lakh Batti a Ceremony

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