Clara Enjoys her Holidays [Clara]

Yesterday I went in the back of a truck to a river to dump out an idol. There were lots of kids and adults. It was very crowded. Some adults went in cars. There were other trucks where we were going, dumping out idols too. The idols weren’t very big; they were just small ones. There were people on the streets selling stuff on our way and I got a long balloon and a horn.

[Editor’s note (Jim): On the last day of Durga Puja, the idols are all dumped into the river to commemorate Durga’s return home. Our apartment building had a house idol and Janet and Clara went with others from our building down to the river to dump the idol. The “small” idols that Clara mentions are 8-10 feet high.]

On Durga Puja every day for lunch and dinner we went down in a big room to have lunch and dinner. There was rice and dal a lot and there were desserts and chutney. There were a lot of kinds of chutney every day. There were gulab jamens sometimes. During Durga Puja there were games downstairs in that same room and Mom got to play musical chairs. She got out on the fourth round.

[Editor’s note: Our apartment complex had an extensive set of activities the whole time. This included meals for everyone in the apartment.]

A few days ago, we were going out looking at idols at Durga Puja. There was one that was very big and it was filled with gold and all the gods were very colorful. There were designs on the walls that were made out of gold. The inside and the outside were made out of gold, except for the gods. There was another pandel, it just looked like dirt with fake trucks and cars on a road on it. But when you walked inside, it looked like a pandel and it had all the gods inside it too. There was also another pandel that was just made out of wood. I liked that one too.

[Editor’s note: It wasn’t real gold, but it sure looked like it. The second picture above is one of the pandels--they are made with bamboo poles, and some of them, including the one above are huge. The third picture is one of the Durga idols. The normal sized ones are at least 10-12 feet high.]