It’s Sravana Masam (the month of August) and as everyone here knows, this means holidays! For our Muslim students, this whole month is Ramzan (Ramadan), which means they fast during the days and break their fast in the evenings with festive family gatherings and yummy Haleem. For our Hindu students, there has been an endless slew of holidays celebrating each of the many different Hindu gods. This past week, we missed a day of school for Krishna’s birthday and next week, they are all looking forward to Vinayaka Chavithi, a huge city-wide celebration in honor of the elephant headed god who is known as the remover of obstacles – probably a good holiday to come as we start the students on video!

The energy of holiday season is palpable, and the kids clearly look forward to each day eagerly. In class the other day, one of my students was showing us how to create the music of the boisterous street parade-dances  – he was one kid drumming with his hands on the side of a desk and he sounded like the entire percussion section of a band…and he was dancing at the same time! As loud and fun as the festivals are, it is clear that they also mean something deeper to the students – the word “belief” is the one they keep throwing around. This is the part they don’t talk about, and apparently can’t really articulate. They responded quite readily to questioning and challenging when it came to issues like education, the use of chewing tobacco, or the uneasy political climate in the city. But the word “belief” was supposed to explain all when it came to religion, and they just didn’t understand what more I could possibly want with my prodding and questioning. Coming from a world where we are taught to question religion and are expected to be able to articulate some sort of rationale for our faith, it was very difficult for me to figure out how to explain what I wanted. The culture around religion is clearly a given around here – Sravana Masam means street parades and deities all around, and Ramzan means evening Haleem at Iftar (fast-breaking.) But beyond that, “belief” is also a given for a lot of our students, and I am still trying to figure out what that really means to these kids that have grown up with it. How does it shape the way they think about the world and their place in it?