The answer is….too many to count. The alleyways of the old city in Jaipur India are packed with the neighborhood residents all “helping” out as the various elephant owners get their prized pachyderm ready for the festival. I can’t tell you exactly how many it takes, but I can tell you it takes at least three people just to manage the various parts of the elephant: trunk, tail, legs, ears, etc., while several more paint away.

I’ve decided to try something different today…blogging as the day unfolds. I’m making quick trips back to the guest house every few hours to dump my camera’s memory card (how I long to have a real DSLR camera again) so I thought I would post and write as I wait for photos to transfer. At least then I will have gotten one blog entry out in a timely manner.

So its noon now and I spent the last 4 hours finding, then photographing, the elephants during their pre-festival makeover. The tradition of the festival goes back decades or possibly even centuries, no one is sure (it’s India after all), but it was not until about 10 years ago that the city of Jaipur decided to revive the tradition as a way to draw tourists. It was intended as a draw for Indian tourists, but as you can imagine when elephants, paint, tug of war, and elephant polo are involved foreigners are soon to follow.

Surprisingly it took quite awhile to find any elephants being painted. This is a big festival and well known in the city, though it seems that when you want to find out where it begins no one knows. After traipsing up and down the back alleys of the old city some local street kids finally directed me between two buildings and into a back courtyard/stable where 2 elephants were being prepped. Later I would meander around finding a half dozen more elephants scattered about in back alleys and enclaves. I was surprised how easy it is to hide a dozen or more elephants in the overcrowded quarters of the old city.

more later now I’m off to the stadium.

Part 2  – march 13

Well my experimental efforts at updating as I went was short lived. Now it is two days later and I’m just getting around to filling in the details of the elephant festival. 

The procession of elephants to the stadium through the old part of the city was sporadic, each owner and elephant proceeding whenever their paint job was done. This is probably for the best as traffic never stopped in the old city, even for the festival and 20 + elephants trying to make there way through. The event(s) themselves are free for all to attend and there was a healthy mix of locals, Indian tourist, and foreigners.  An MC moderated the whole event in excellent, albeit very formal, English.  The procession of decorated elephants wound its way around the inside of the stadium then settled into a formation in the center of the field.  The crowd decided they no longer wanted to stay in their seats and most flooded onto the field in and among the elephants, dancers, camels, and musicians.  It seemed everyone with a camera or camera phone could not resist the temptation to get as close as possible. The MC pleaded with the crowd to clear the center of the field, the polite and formal English he spoke made the whole thing seem a bit like a Monty Python skit. 

 

Eventually after about an hour and with assistance from the security detail everyone was coaxed out of the middle of the field so the events could continue.   Elephant polo never materialized, possibly due to the delay caused by the crowd.  Eventually everything culminated into a display of flowerworks.  Flowerworks were something new to me and proved rather amusing.  Flowerworks are lit by a fuse and launched from a tube on the ground just like a regular fireworks show, except that a plum of flower pedals is shot out into the air about 20 feet instead of a shower of sparks.  Occasionally one of the tubes wasn’t packed right and the plume of flowers would catch fire from the initial blast and send a fireball of burning flower petals into the air.  The crowd seemed equally amused in either case.

That evening a few hours after the conclusion of the elephant festival it was time to prepare for Holi the next day.  It is custom the night before Holi to light a bonfire and make offerings for good luck and health.  The entire city became  alight with bonfires every 100 meters.  I was shocked and honestly a bit concerned how big these fire got.  These were not your average little camp fires, but fires 2-3 meters across and equally tall.  The alarming thing was that most of these fires were in the alleyways between houses. These alleyways are only 8-10 meters wide and littered with flammable trash, but some locals assured me they had never heard of any houses catching fire during Holi  (I knew this was probably not true, but I wanted to beleive them).  Foreigners were encouraged to watch the activates from their hotel balconies or at a large police supervised bonfire near the stadium. 

I had befriended a local, Rashid, a few days ago and he promised to take me out into it all and party with his friends.  I didn’t quite realize what was in store for me.  Rashid picked me up at my guest house and we hopped on his motor cycle and rode for a few blocks and picked up his other friend.  We then rode 3 deep on Rashid’s motorcycle down these alleyways skirting bonfires, dodging cows, people, rickshaws, bikes and various other hazards.  The whole city looked like a scene one might see on the news during a riot (minus the violence) where everything is burning and people are going crazy out on the streets.  Quite something to behold, when I could keep my eyes open. The smoke and the wind and the dust was too much at times so I had to just close my eyes.  Bouncing down the alleyways and weaving passed a bonfire Rashid knew what he was doing.  I found a bit of relgion myself that day, praying Rashid knew what he was doing each time we weaved our way past a bonfire.

How many Indians does it take to paint and elephant?4.051
Tags: India, Colors, Culture, Elephants, Festival, Jaipur