Holi, Good Friday, & Milad

Life in India has been very interesting so far. Not a day goes by where we learn something new and experience something totally alien. Today is the beginning of Holi and Good Friday and people here are also celebrating Milad un Nabi (the day the Prophet (s) was born).

The streets are filled with festivities...

Our driver, Bhaskar was nice enough to take us around tonight to see how Karnataka celebrates Holi। We went to a Mandir in an area called Cubbonpet.
I guess here in the south they celebrate things differently than other parts of India. Below, is the interior of the temple. The story goes like this: " Kamadeva is a god of love. Kama's body was destroyed when he shot his weapon at Shiva in order to disrupt his penance and help Parvati to marry Shiva. Shiva then opened his third eye, the gaze of which was so powerful that Kama's body was reduced to ashes. For the sake of Kama's wife Rati (passion), Shiva restored him, but only as a mental image, representing the true emotional and mental state of love rather than physical lust. The Holi bonfire is believed to be celebrated in commemoration of this event." (thank God for Wikipedia)

So you can't really see Kamadeva in the pic but he is behind the flowers on the left...Shiva is on the upper right and the 2 wives that belong to the 2 are in the middle. The 2nd day (which is tomorrow) they burn the statue of Kamadeva and enshroud his wife in a white sari which symbolizes her being a widow...after this the festivities of holi begin.

Afterwards, Bhaskar took us to multiple temples which were performing the same rituals। He then took us to the silk sari factory area of the district and showed us how silk saris are made। The hard silk sari below, costs rs। 600! It'd be cool to explore other factories and see what other types of saris are made।