Celebrate good times, come on!

It's a celebration... no, seriously, this week has been filled with lots of celebrations, festivals, and general happiness. From a pilgrimage/carnival with hundreds of people to a series of great conversations with various flatmates, I've been in a really great mood all week. So basically, here's a rundown of what all has happened:

Wedding processions in the street:
So one night, all of us were studying in the common room of the first floor when someone heard what sounded like a marching band procession. We were all a little confused (who has a parade at midnight?), so we decided to head to the roof to see what was going on. It was pretty dark, so we couldn't really see anything except this:


Naturally, we were pretty curious. All sorts of theories, ranging from holiday parade to protest march, were put forward, but I wanted to get a closer look. So me and 3 of the guys ran down to the street, where we realized that this was no parade: it was a wedding procession!


It moved on pretty quickly, so I couldn't get too many pictures, but here are two I did manage to get:

Cool lamps!

The groom, I think

World Trade Park Construction:
So for those of you who don't know (I didn't before last week), the Rajasthani government is constructing the World Trade Park as a center of South Asian international trade in Jaipur right now, so we saw the unveiling ceremony. No, I didn't go the the model unveiling ceremony (at which Shah Rukh Khan spoke, for the record), but I did get some close-up pictures of the current state of the WTP:




Pilgrimage comes to Jaipur!
This was one of the most surprising events of the week. A few of my friends decided to randomly go to the carnival on a day with a particularly light workload. Upon their return, they told us (incredibly excitedly - they're all religious studies grad students, a.k.a. your future, Kaitlyn) about the Amarnath Yathra they had gone through. Now, I'm no expert, but I was pretty sure the yathra was supposed to end up at the Amarnath Caves in Kashmir. A slight problem? Not for the clever Rajasthanis, who built A MINIATURE VERSION OF THE ENTIRE PILGRIMAGE INSIDE THE CARNIVAL. Seriously. So amidst the ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds (all of which went far too fast to be child-appropriate), there was this huge enclosure:


attached to the main carnival office:


Now I'm a sucker for anything with a huge serpent hanging over the entrance:


so I had to go on this little yathra. Once I got in, I was... actually really impressed/scared. They had essentially recreated (or attempted to) the Kashmiri landscape, as well as the various checkpoints (I don't really know the proper word for this. Stops? Noteworthy locations?) along the way. I wish I could have gotten more pictures, but as soon as I snapped this one of the entire pilgrimage from the entrance, a guard yelled at me that taking pictures was banned. So here's the first impression:


And if you want to see more, I guess you'll just have to come to Rajasthan and go on the pilgrimage yourself!