The streets in the old quarter of Udaipur are eerily quiet. Shops are shuttered and people are milling around . The incessant ZOOM, ZOOM of motorbikes and rickshaws is not to be heard. Blue sky reflects off the City Palace and Lake Pichola, the result of a day without diesel pollution.

Today is the Muslim festival, Muharram. It commemorates the assassination of the Shia Muslim  Hussein Ibn Ali, a grandson of Mohammed, and is one of the holiest festivals of the year.  Gerald and I decide to forgo our plans to go out of the city and stay in Udaipur. We’ve been told that “sometime” in the morning and “sometime” in the evening there will be a procession. Each person we ask gives a different answer as to the starting time, and we find ourselves roaming back and forth on the the same streets following whatever seems to be a reliable lead.

Finally we give in. It wil happen when it will happen.  Just then I spot a group of village women wearing huge gold earrings.  We saw the same ladies in Pushkar and I had all but given up hope of ever seeing them again, and being able to photograph them.  I am so excited about being given a second chance that I run ahead, trying to catch up with them.  They are moving faster, aware and amused that I am following them, but also afraid of losing the rest of their group. When they reach the entrance of the City Palace (their destination)  I squat down on the ground next to them and we compare earrings. Before I know it,one woman takes off her earrings and puts them on me so G can take a picture.

Me trying on the earrings with the ladies from Porbander(in Gujarat)

While eating a masala dosa we talk with a young Dutch couple, who tell us about this amazing procession they just witnessed!  Determined not to miss the evening one, we stake out a prime spot in a rooftop restaurant overlooking Jagdish temple, where the procession will pass.  It is only three in the afternoon, but policemen are already lining up, and women and children are setting out cloths to sit on along the route.  G thinks it  will start soon. “Believe me, they’re not going to hang around like that for another three  hours.” I think otherwise.

Preparing a float for Muharram

Crowds of men dancing in the square for Muharram

It is now almost six in the evening .We have eaten a chicken tikka masala, drunk numerous fresh lime sodas, and still nothing.  Down below in the square a sea of men is gathering.  Slowly we hear chanting getting louder and louder, and  see men forming small circles and doing a slow rhythmic dance with scarves waving in their hands . Then  a rush of boys carrying a giant float of a glittering mosque comes into view as they spin around severals times, to cries of “HOSEIN”,  followed by “ALI”. The procession continues, each float taller than the next.  Groups of drummers incite the men to a feverish frenzy.  In past years there has been some violence and the rows of police are on high alert. There are too many young men with nothing to do, and this can easily turn into a riot.  But it doesn’t, and float after float of varying sizes of mosques (some 4 stories high,)pass by, preceded by groups of drummers.

At 9pm the last float has made its way down the narrow street toward the ghat, and the crowd disperses peacefully.