Two Very Different Birthdays

Mumbai is an incredibly noisy city. Since we live in a home without air conditioning, our windows are open most of the time. That means I get to hear just about everything that happens around my flat, from the roasted corn vendor who sits outside our gate to the honking of rickshaw horns to the school children being dismissed at the end of the day. It hasn’t taken me long to learn how to completely tune out the incessant buzz of urban Indian life. But on Sunday morning, the “volume down” switch in my brain met its match.

I was awakened to the roar of a massive crowd chanting, singing and beating drums outside my window. I had no idea what was going on, but quickly decided I was better off staying inside than venturing out to investigate. When I finally needed to make the journey to the train station to head for weekly worship services, the noise had died down somewhat. However, as soon as I arrived at the station, I was greeted with a sight that fully explained the earlier disturbance.

Unbeknownst to me, Sunday was a rather major holiday for Hindus. Known as “Dahi Handi” (translating as Yogurt Pot) this day is part of the birth celebration of Krishna, one of the Hindu gods. The legend is that Krishna had an affinity for milk products and used to steal from the pot of village girl and women. In order to save their food from this mischievous 8th incarnation of Vishnu, women strung their pots up on a rope.

In Mumbai, the 2nd day of Krishna’s birth celebration is commemorated with Dahi Handi, in which teams of men form human pyramids in an effort to reach a clay pot full of yogurt that has been strung up above the crowd. The team that reaches the pot is rewarding with significant prize money, so the competition is pretty fierce. Teams will typically spend the day travelling from one pot to another, trying to win as much money as possible. The noise I heard when I awoke was the commencement of this lively event.
















I was fortunate enough to stumble on this particular team just as they were adding their last member to the top. Unfortunately, though the effort was quite commendable, he wasn’t quite tall enough to reach the pot, so they had to load back up in their bus and move on to a hopefully slightly shorter setup.

But, as the title of my post mentions, Krishna’s is not the only birth that was celebrated on Sunday. After stumbling upon Dahi Handi, I went to the worship services I attend every week. There, we had a wonderful spiritual birth of a lovely woman named Madhu (which translates to “honey” in Hindi). I know that everyone reading my blog comes from diverse religious backgrounds, so for those of you who don’t know, I’ll just give a brief explanation of what this means. Madhu has been studying the Bible for quite some time, but had not felt sure she believed that Jesus Christ is the incarnation and Son of God, or that she wanted to accept Him as her Lord. But on Sunday, Madhu finally decided that she fully believes what the Bible teaches about Jesus, and that this belief compelled her to make a commitment to follow Him. She publicly acknowledged that she has sin in her life (as we all do), confessed her belief in Jesus as the Son of God, and then was baptised. Baptism is symbolic of the fact that when a person converts to Christianity, the sinful person dies. She is “buried” under the water, and when she comes up, she is reborn sinless and covered by God’s grace. So, for many Christians, the day of their baptism is as much of a birthday celebration as the day of their physical birth, since it marks the start of a new life in Jesus.

Happy Birthday, Madhu!











Obviously this is an extremely simplified explanation of this process. If anyone wants me to explain more, let me know. My faith is a huge part of who I am, and I love to talk about it and compare with others’ experiences.

Ultimately, it was pretty interesting to see two very different faiths celebrate births on the same day in two totally different ways. Only in India!