Deepavali – Thursday until Saturday (English)

On the following morning I learn to bake the indian crepe-like bread Thosai. We eat it on fresh banana leaves with several sauces.

After the breakfast Kavitha and I go to the nearby temple but there isn’t anybody praying nor is anybody performing traditional rituals. We only paint a grey Bindhi on our fore head. I’m wearing my own Indian dress, the Djippa (not sure about the spelling).

Afterwards we visit other indian families in the village. Everywhere the hosts serve meals and there are cookies like the Malay kuih raya on the tables. Then the the people gave money in envelopes to the youth and also me. This is a custom adopted from the chinese culture (refer to my articles from February) and definitely proves how multi-cultural Malaysia is.

In between the visits we eat the biggest mango I’ve ever seen in my life and I taste the flesh of the coco fruit. The seeds of this fruit are dried and processed to produce chocolate.

Towards evening we make visits to houses in the middle of nowwhere. One of Kavitha’s uncles also shows me a rubber plantation. For dinner we eat delicious crabs, that where marinated and fried according to a specific indian recipe.

On Friday morning I follow one of Kavitha’s cousins on his motorcycle to the village center to buy breakfast for all family members. We buy Nasi Lemak and Roti Canai and rush back to home.

After breakfast I take a walk through the whole village and also come across several open houses as today is the second last day of the islamic celebration month Syawal.

We visit more people and finally we pack our things to move on to another uncle’s house in near Kuala Selangor. It is situated right inside a small plantation workers settlement surrounded by oil palm estates. The people advised me not to drink the tap water, even if it is boiled.

On the next morning I draw a traditional Kolam painting with cloured rice. At the moment you can find these kolams everywhere in Malaysia and also the nicer ones can usually be found in office towers and hotels. Most of them and my one aswell display similar objects. Candles for instance as Deepavali is the Festival Of Lights.

After the kolam is finished an uncle takes me to the surrounding plantations on his motorcycle to find workers, because I’m interested in the harvest of the oil seeds from the palm trees. Unfortunately we cannot spot anybody and return to the house. Anyway, we have a nice conversation during the ride and he gives me interesting answers to my questions about oil palms. I’m not too disappointed as I later observed harvesting workers from the car.

By noon we reach Kuala Selangor and wait for the others to visit the historic Melawati hill, that was turned into a fortress by most colonial powers to supervise the Straits of Malacca. The museum on top of the hill gives detailed insight about the history of Selangor and its capital. Sadly the weather isn’t nice and the sky is covered with a thick layer of grey clouds.

We have lunch together before I say goodby to all my new friends, that is to say about 30 Kavitha’s relatives. I enjoyed Deepavali and learned a lot. I am very thankful to Kavitha and her warm hearted family for this experience.