It’s Video Friday on BreatheDreamGo. When I was in Delhi, India in February 2010, I attended a truly spectacular Sufi Music Festival at Humayun’s Tomb, one of Delhi’s three UNESCO World Heritage sites. It was a magical night and I wrote about it on my blog post Delights of Delhi. This is the Janis Joplin of Sufi Music, Abida Parveen. She is a mesmerizing Pakistani singer who was the main draw for the thousands of people camped out under the stars that night. Enjoy!
It’s video Friday on BreatheDreamGo, and today you get two videos — both of Holi, the Festival of Colour. This is a huge festival in India, celebrated all over the country, to mark the start of spring. People throw coloured powder and water at each other and drink bhang lassi to really get things going. I’ve been in India three times for Holi. I took thse videos in Delhi at a private club. Much fun was had by all.
This video marks the start of a new feature on BreatheDreamGo: Video Friday. Every Friday I will upload a video from my travels in India (or other entertaining videos I come across).
I took this video after getting into an autorickshaw at Bandra train station in Mumbai. Look for the near collision at 1:42!
I took this video from the media platform in the middle of Har-ki-pauri, Haridwar (north India) during the Maha Kumbh Mela — which is the world’s largest gathering of humanity on earth. To read about this massive Hndu spiritual festival — and my harrowing adventures finding myself alone in the midst of millions — click here.
I took this video the evening I went to the Ravi Shankar Centre in Delhi, India (February 2010). Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka Shankar were hosting a dance and music festival in honour of George Harrison’s birthday. He would have been 67 on February 25, 2010.
Om Shanti Om, Toronto
To celebrate the news that Toronto will host the Indian International Film Awards in June 2011, I am posting this video from the hit Shah Rukh Khan film Om Shanti Om. The video features more than 30 Bollywood stars, including legendary actors Dharmendra (who can’t dance) and Rekha, Aishwarya Rai, Pryianka Chopra, Rani Mukherjee, Preity Zinta, Kajol, John Abraham, Govinda and, in my favourite scene, Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan and SRK dancing on the bar and whipping off their jackets. It’s great — to be a star in Bollywood, you have to be able to dance with joy and abandon.
On the morning of April 14 approximately 10 million people streamed into the sacred town of Haridwar in north India to bathe in the Ganga on the most auspicious day during the 2010 Kumbh Mela. I was one of them. Find out how I found myself alone, and at home, at the world’s largest spiritual gathering.
In Varanasi, where the veil between life and death seems very thin, a boat ride on the river can become a journey to the other side. Come along with me on a boat ride on the Ganges River in India’s oldest, holiest city and pierce the veil.
The Ganges / Ganga River is the Mother of India. The River speaks in many voices as she travels from the high Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. At the source, her song is joyous, full of the the jubilance of youth, the rush of fresh mountain streams, the sincere chanting of pilgrims and the excitement of the onward journey.
