Hanuman Festival in Rajpur

In Rajpur they held a celebration called Hanuman Jayanti in honor of Hanuman, the monkey god. In the early evening, I started hearing four songs playing in rotation. Later, I walked over to the village to check it out. One man was dressed as Hanuman atop a wagon pulled by a tractor. Below him sat five girls each dressed up as a different Hindu deity. In front of this wagon was another topped with large speakers. Behind the speakers, men danced to the same four songs and occasionally tossed red powder into the air (perhaps left over from the Holi Festival). The two tractors slowly drove around and around Rajpur. These four songs were blasted at full volume for no less than twelve straight hours...seriously! The music continued until sunrise. Even on the farm over 200 yards from the village, the loud music abrasively pounded through the mud walls into my eardrums. Following the tractors and dancing with the men in the evening was fun, but later that night, several hours into the same four songs, I was fed up with the obnoxiously loud music and the same obnoxious Punjabi dance music.

Dancing...

After this experience, the next day I left the painfully hot plains of Uttar Pradesh and headed for the cooler temperatures and higher elevations of the mountains of the Kumao region of Uttarakhand.