DJ Trava

Okay, so I’m stay at one of the Luxury Singapore Business Hotels which my company booked for a month. A month isn’t enough time to really get to know Singapore and the locals at all, but it is enough time to make some interesting acquaintances and possibly a love interest. I’ve only been here for two weeks when the bartender of my favorite bar mentioned that I should participate in the Theemidhi Festival. He told me then I need to participate in the Deepavali, the Festival of Lights. He told me, I’d get a better taste of Singapore and the people here.

I don’t know, I mean, I am only here for a month, do I really want to know Singapore better? But, then all he has to mention was how many beautiful single women participate in both festivals. Well, this peeked my interest. So, I asked him what the Theemidhi Festivals all about. He told me that it a Hindu Festival were they walk barefoot across white-hot embers at the Sri Mariamman Temple. It’s in honor of the Hindu goddess Draupadi. My bartender is Hindi, so he elaborated about who the goddess Draupadi is.

She’s a heroine of the epic poem Mahabharata. She was a princess who was the subject of her husband’s wager in a risky game of dice. Her husband played with his cousin, Duryodhana and her husband lost. She was then the property of Duryodhana. That wasn’t her only hardship; she was the epitome of harsh treatment of all women by men. So, the festival is in honor of Draupadi’s courage that devotees subject themselves to a test of faith by walking barefoot across of 4 meter pit or red hot coals. Deifying the intense heat, these devotees, these firewalkers focus and deep concentration to complete the challenge come out miraculously unscathed. But, not only unscathed, the devotees regard it as a test of purity. So, basically, it’s said that if a devotee is not pure, he or she will fail the test and be burnt.

I only have to watch, I don’t have to participate, which I wouldn’t anyway. My bartender said he’d be glad to go along with me, he figures if he’s seen with an American businessman, he’d have a better chance of getting a date with either one of the devotees or one of the visitors. That sounded good to me. Getting to know Singapore better.

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