MahaShivarathree

Well there is something funny about the name of this festival - to me it is ambiguous.

Maha - means Great

Shiva - well I know, its the Man himself i.e. the Lord, or as i prefer 'Nataraja' King of Dancers

Rathree- is derived from the word 'raat' which in Hindi means night

So, does Maha-Shiva-Rathree mean

1. The Great Night of Shiva, or

2. The Night of the Great Shiva....

I personally prefer the second translation... sounds better,

On the way:

Nearly there:

Finally there:
Whatever be the case, I went to Grand Bassin today..... my cousin told me that it all started with a Pandit who had a dream about a lake with a little island in the middle, then he set out for a walk to look for that place....most probably, the guy should have come across Mare-aux-Vacoas on his way.... imagine the face of the guy when he found out that there was no island in the middle of the reservoir. This would have implied that he would have had to keep on walking...poor guy.

Well it might seem funny, but in those days there were no roads of street lights and stuff.... spooky forests all around - call That an act of faith!!!

Anyways this is a great festival and I went to Grand Bassin, and the place does have something 'different'. It was all foggy and this made it kind of mysterious.

Off we go, as we turn round, it seemed as if the statue was wavin good bye though the 'hand gesture' in fact meant that we were being blessed.

I prefer to think it is a 'good bye see you next year', see for yourself!!!

After all the prayers and pujas, we went to another temple called Amma Tookay Kovil at Camp Diable, the Kovil is in the middle of sugarcane fields....its is so nice.

The fact that we did not have any breakfast was starting to be felt... so on the way back home, we stopped at La Flora to have a roadside lunch along with other pilgrims.

Then got back home and rested. Tomorrow will be a very busy day!