Aluna

“But Ma’am, why? It is for good husband!” The 12^th standard girls are right; in retrospect, I should have at least tried to participate in the five-day fast for the Aluna festival. Every unmarried girl in the village followed the strict rules of the fast in hopes of finding a good husband: they ate grains only once a day, only sweets that are home-made, and no foods cooked with salt. In the villages of Gujarat, that really limits what you can eat— I was not sure if my body could handle it after being sick and not having eaten meat for the longest time in my life. But for a good husband, why not? It would have been an experience!

I did have the opportunity to observe and participate in many of the other events and activities that are part of Aluna’s festivities though. When I walked into Spoken English on Monday morning, the girls looked at my hands and exclaimed, “Ma’am! Why no mendhi?” All of them had freshly applied mendhi on their arms and hands—intricate and creative designs, as different for each girl as their fingerprints are. They were each wearing a colorful salwar kameez to celebrate Aluna (while the boys still had to wear uniforms). “Teacher, I do your mendhi!” So during the thirty minutes between Spoken English class and Morning Prayer, I had a crowd of girls around me drawing flowers and curlicues on my arms with impressive speed. Every girl here seems to have an innate talent of creating beautiful mendhi designs; they control the tube of henna with swiftness and no hesitation. Upon returning to the staff room after Morning Prayer, I was about to start correcting students’ notebooks when the other teachers intervened: “Don’t use your hands!” They joked that having henna on your hands is to have forced leisure time; one must guard her hands carefully and blot it with a mixture of sugar and lemon juice to make the mendhi dark. Supposedly, the darker the mendhi, the more your husband will love you!

During the week of Aluna, the school held some kind of competition for the students every day, including a mendhi competition, aarti competition, hair styling competition, and fashion competition. I was impressed in particular with the aarti competition—about sixty students, both boys and girls, participated, and everybody had such unique ideas! They had an hour and a half to finish making the aarti, or the decorated plate of lighted wicks used at a puja. As the competition began, everybody pulled out their own pans and colorful materials, from feathers and beads to flowers and nuts to mirrors and colored sand. Primary students and higher secondary students alike all worked intently, carefully placing each object and strategically laying out the design. As the students began to finish, they added the lamps and lit the wicks; soon the entire room was full of beautifully lit aarti plates. The smell of incense lingered in the air as the judges walked around the room, while curious students crowded the windows of the prayer hall to see who might win the competition this year.

During the week of Aluna, I discovered that my students had talents that I never knew about. It was another big step in getting to know them!

More on Aluna next time, so look out for more updates!

Namaste and thank you for reading,

Milly