The Voyage of Yacht Zulu

  

November 13, 2012 


What is Diwali; The bus to Lautoka; Celebrating the festival at the Boatshed restaurant; The ambiance; The Indian buffet; The fireworks and sweets; The Indian dancers; Slowly the festival lights burn down; JDs house. 

What is Diwali 

Diwali is the Hindu religious celebration of the Festival of Lights. It is a reaffirmation of bonds of love shared by exchanging greetings, food, sweets, and gifts of love. Elaborate lighting is created in the homes and villages, including candle light set in coloured rice decoration at entrance ways of doors to homes and other venues that celebrate the event. 



Candles burn with backgrounds of coloured rice designs at entranceways to homes and other venues celebrating the event. 

In Fiji this day is declared a public holiday, so even non-Hindus take part in the festival: Fijians, too, wear the rich, glittering, feminine saris for women and the light-weight cream tunics for men. 

Schools encourage multi-cultural participation and the children participate in dialogue in the Hindi language. 

The tradition of sharing love and goodwill through lights and food and fireworks and dance makes for cultural harmony. A night of gaiety, of touching each other through sensory delight.

We were invited to JD’s home for Diwali, a Hindu maintenance man here in the Marina. 

The bus to Lautoka 

I catch the early morning bus to Lautoka the day before the holiday to shop for fresh food and to pick up some Indian ‘sweets’ as a gift for when we go to JDs house. 

It is 7:45 AM in the morning and I walk in the opposite direction of all the workers coming in off an earlier bus to work at the marina complex. I pass the Flamboyant tree bursting with red flowers against a blue sky, to the bus stop under a huge shade tree. 

I sit on a stone bench and wait for the bus to Lautoka. Not too long and it arrives. I board and pay the fare for about a 3/4hr ride on a slow bus of FJ$1.60 = about US$.90c. I choose to sit up front in the two-person seat for the view and chance at not being sat on by large Fijians. 

We ride down the same dusty Vuda Point road that leads to the sugar rail line. The bus stops often. Mostly Indian women in beautiful saris of greens, apricot, turquoise, and reds speckled in silver and gold and bedecked with heavy silver or gold jewelry. They are going to town for last-minute purchases for their holiday celebration. 

School children board the bus. Oh so sweet in their pink or purple or blue or white uniforms. The little Indian students all have neatly plaited shiny hair with white bows. Fijian girls have natural short round crinkly air cuts or long hair pulled into a bun or also French braided. Boys are in shorts and blue shirts. No gaudy accoutrements or dyed hair or painted nails or gum chewing or swearing or spitting or bullying—How refreshing! 

Different uniforms represent different schools. Mostly Indian children board on the Vuda Point road, and mostly Fijian children board along the by-road to the village of Viseisei. The cultures are starkly different, but they blend and respect each other. The older students hold the hands of the younger ones. And friends, very young and older, put their arms around each other off the bus. 

The children are priceless as they board, helped by a mother or grandfather, ticket ready for the bus driver in their tiny hands, and so well behaved. Perhaps a giggle here or there, but usually quiet as mice. 

A sweetest little Fijian boy sits down next to me and stares up into my face. I smile and he smiles big. He is as much intrigued by me as I am by him. 

At Viseisei primary school the bus stops and I read the banner holding the school motto. “Nothing without Labour.” I see the young students raking leaves from under trees in the school yard before classes begin. I see the same at numerous schools. Little girls in their fresh uniforms with long-handled rakes, raking away to clean up their play ground before studies begin. 

Older student’s board too, as well behaved as the little ones. (The university is closer to Lautoka). They squeeze in now: the university students dressed all in white—young men in sulus (Fijian skirts) and white short-sleeved shirts. We are all squashed together, a bus load of Indian women in saris smelling of incense; one or two yachties—usually in T-shirt, shorts, cap, sunglasses, and backpacks; Fijian women in colourful tropical dresses who look like teachers; one or two grey-haired school masters whose presence alone demands good behavior; and young mothers carrying infants whose lollying heads bob to and fro in sleep—as the bus jerks forward in motion. 

The bus drivers usually look somewhat stupefied as they collect the tickets, drive the bus, and honk the horn. Their radios are FULL BLAST with LOUD rap-type Indian music, appropriate for the holiday or any day. 

I get off in Lautoka and at 9:00 AM it is hot, and the pollution already stings the eyes, and the dust engrains. I wonder how these Indian women seem to look so fresh and beautiful in their saris and heavily made up faces. I look like wilted seaweed with a plugged in Jimmie Hendrix hair do. 

The town is somewhat grimy with lots of Indian stores filled with sparkling jewelry and saris and men’s tunic outfits. They are cluttered and rich with colour and loud with noise. The Indian stores blare with salespeople making sale pitches through loudspeakers--advertising Diwali specials. They are usually woman and their high-pitched voices are grating. When I say loud, I mean LOUD. A lot of stores have virtual armies of sales people who immediately surround you on entry, no qualm about acceptable boundaries. They virtually envelope you like flies. 

There are Chinese restaurants and stores packed full of cheap plastic junk, the chemical smell of which is overwhelming. I find the Indian restaurant that sells sweets. It is air conditioned. I make my choices not knowing what I am getting. And make my way out to the Chilli Tree restaurant. It, too, is air conditioned and caters to western taste. Flat white or espresso coffees, quiche, smoothies etc. It is a place to refresh for the Lautoka onslaught that still awaits. 

I meander into the huge fresh fruit and vegetable market place: and gather up long green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes, onions, ginger, garlic, curry, cilantro, pineapples, mangos, paw paws. And pretty soon I feel as if I am laden down like an Ecuadorian donkey. 

I make for the bus and stumble on with bags dangling from stretched and strained limbs and virtually collapse on the front seat. The Tower of London looks good compared. Luckily a sweet little school boy sits down next to me again, rather than a large boned big Fijian person. They often flop down with half a leg on top of you. 

The return trip is ditto with school children boarding, bus stopping, children and mothers getting off and Indian women still smelling like incense with bags of sweets and fireworks and sparkling decorations. I cannot help but stare at their rich attire and jewelry against coffee painted faces, with the red dot mid forehead. They look beautiful. 

Celebrating the festival at the Boatshed restaurant, Vuda Point 

I’m in a dilemma about where to go to celebrate. JD, the Hindu maintenance man at the Marina, did kindly invite us to his home to share his goodwill. Vuda Point Boatshed restaurant has invited us too and is just down our apartment stairs. I am hungry from the journey to town and yearn for vegetarian curry. Can we do both? 

First things first: a cold shower, a rest, water with ice and fresh-squeezed limes quench my terrible thirst. The overhead fan is turned onto number 3. And I melt into a light sleep. Rain is falling. 

I feel rather than walk down the dirt road in the rain to look for a house we have never been to before and which does not have a street number, but is just opposite the Harikrishna temple I say: I feel like spending Diwali at the Boatshed. After circles of indecision we come to agreement. 

I shower again with warm water, wash my hair, cream my fresh body, get dressed in something pretty, something fitting for Diwali: light gray cotton pants roushed at the sides, a black chamois, and a sheer long white Indian-style top that comes down mid calf. I wear my coloured glass necklace and bracelet, and the last of Vanessa’s gift of perfume—Victoria Secret’s Dream Angels Divine. 

It is raining and I get wet merely walking down the outside apartment stairs to the entrance of the Boatshed restaurant. Am glad I’m not walking the muddy road to an address unknown. 

The ambiance 

Ana is there to welcome the guests, the sweet Sunset bar waitress. She is dressed in a beautiful purple Sari happy we will join them. At the entrance to the Boatshed restaurant, on the floor, are designs made from coloured rice and lit candles with flames darting in the wind. Sheer silk Indian yardage in green and apricot hang in scalloped form at the entrance and along the sides of the verandah. The light breeze billows them to and fro. Candle light catch their sheen. 


Ana welcomes us at the entrance to the Boatshed restaurant for an evening of celebration. My top is speckled with rain drops. 

At the entrance, on the floor, are designs made from coloured rice dotted with lit candles their flames flickering in the wind. 


At the entrance to the Boatshed restaurant, on the floor, are designs made from coloured rice dotted with lit candles their flames flickering in the wind. 

Frameworks of coloured paper guard the wind from candles on the lawn. But the rain and wind overwhelm, dampening and tearing at them, snuffing out the light. A string of coloured bulbs swing in the wind and hold fast to shed their light. 



A Fijian staff member tries to relight candles the rain and wind have snuffed out. Wind has torn the coloured framework. 

Tables on the Boatshed verandah are candle lit with a centre piece of tropical flowers. All the women staff are dressed in saris, the men are dressed in lightweight cream cotton long tunic shirts and pants. 

We have just sat down when a Hindu woman in a sari comes by to press a red-powder dot on our foreheads—the Hindu symbol. She got mine slightly off center and the rain on my face made it do a meltdown, like I had a puncture wound to the head. 

The Indian buffet 

An Indian buffet awaits and one of the chefs* is there to guide us through the selection, even though each tray is name tagged: Roti and crisp fried wafer-like ‘bread’; condiments of fresh curried tomatoes, tamarind sauce, coriander and fine cabbage and carrots with lime; pumpkin, jack fruit, mixed vegetables; rice; chicken and meat for a starter. 

I serve myself a medium helping of all stopping short of the meat and chicken. I ask a special favour for grilled fish as I don’t eat meat. It arrives shortly with sliced limes: two delicious filets of Walu grilled to perfection. Yum! Slowly I savour each mouthful, and sip on an ice cold Fiji Bitter beer with lime. At last I relax. I’m in candle-lit curry heaven. 

Ana brings a glass of sparklers to the table. They rest in a shallow base of beach sand—an understated medium for light. Feeling nourished and with a sense of vitality I reach out in after thought and light a sparkler. 


I hold on to its sparkling light, its effervescence, and silently express a timely moment of joy. 


 I hold on to a sparkler’s light, its effervescence, and silently express a timely moment of joy.

The fireworks and sweets 

Fireworks explode. Adam the young Marina CEO is out on the break water lighting them. They burst into coloured profusion, their designs of fire arcing into the sea. I run out in the open between curry mouthfuls to take in the excitement and the rush of sensory delight. Fireworks bring out a childlike awe in me. It brings on smiles. 

My plate is clean and Ana gently appears saying:”You can go through twice and then select sweets to finish with.” I do go back for seconds, tiny servings to stretch out delicious fulfillment. 

Next, I find myself at the ‘sweet’ cart. JD built it. It is glass, framed in bright red-painted wood with a lid that lifts up—almost like a street cart. The ‘sweets’--all an enigma to me—are lit up. 

The same chef who pointed out the different curries to me makes selections for me: long red chillis formed into pretzel shapes dipped in a sugar glaze; deep-fried balls of flour and cardamom; deep fried what nots; salty dried peas; miniature tartlets with scented spice custard fillings; more deep-fried sugar soaked enigmas. Take the chance and taste them. 

The Indian dancers 

With a ball of deep-friend what not in my mouth, a flash of exotic silver-threaded coloured fabric engulfing human form darts through the satiated seated diners. It is Rubi. She is now out on the lawn in the wind and light mist of drizzle dancing wildly to a powerful throb of Bollywood-type music. Hair down to the small of her back. 

I still have a syrup-soaked dough ball in my mouth and run out to the lawn to watch Ruby’s body side-winding, pelvis projecting in and out, arms like plugged in windmills, she runs to and fro and skips—her shimmering costume of bright colours emphasizing the exotic. 

The music stops and she runs into the shadows-disappears. I sit down at the table to select the sugar-glazed red chili pretzel. I’ll take an initial nibble in case it is hell hot and I self combust.

“You know that was a man dancing.” Says Russ. I could not really believe it, but in the end on second and third renditions with costume change I could see that she was a he, sort of because there were breasts in that bra. 

“That is the way it is here.” Said the beautiful Indian mother of another young dancer. She smiled. It is true. All over the South Pacific transgender or men who dress and act a women are accepted without a second thought. It is what it is. 

This woman pointed to the young dancer in a beautiful black and silver costume as her young daughter. She said there was no dance school here, rather that her daughter learned all the steps from watching Bollywood movies. Too sweet. Her little brother of about 8 stood by taking a video of his big sister. The young parent sat aside, proud. 

The woman chatted a little about the difference between First and Second-world countries--not a blanket statement. How that the love and goodwill shared in this festival is lasting. How the family is the center point in life. How that the old are not cast off into old age homes, rather the children take them into their own homes to care of them and share quality of life until the end. And that the good Karma returns full circle. 

There was another burst of fireworks as if punctuating truth. And the young girl in the black and silver skirt danced on…… 



Rubi the dancer, a he who is a she. Darkness engulfs her in the festival of light. 

Slowly the festival lights burn down 

Nourished and sensory filled, the sparklers burned out, the candles flicker in pools of hot melted wax, every now and then a boom and crackle and burst of light graces the skies and embers fall to the sea. Diwali has come to an end. 

“I cannot go to JDs house, I’m going to bed.” Russ said. 
The rain keeps falling. 

JDs house next day

 Late afternoon we walk down the dusty, potholed road toward the Harikrishna temple in search of JDs home. I feel bad we chose to be a no show at his invitation to share goodwill. I want to show a gesture of grace. 

Abdul the taxi driver said get in, that he was going that way and dropped us off at JDs house. I don’t think we could have easily found it ourselves. 

His 30ish year-old son greeted us somewhat surprised and pointed JDs house out to us right next to his. JD had his shirt off and looked like he had just gotten home from work. Son and father introduced us to their wives and asked that we sit down with them on their verandah. 

“We just wanted to stop by and bring you a gift of sweets for Diwali, and apologize for not coming last night.” I said. JD looked a little disappointed, but gestured to his wife to bring some refreshment: Pepsi and a plate of sweets and savoury nibbles. 

His son represents International Paint sales for yachts in the area, is educated and fluent in English. JD is a listener, rather than a talker. But shares with us that this was his father’s land they lived on. His house and his son’s house right in front of his. The generations pass the land down to the children, and their strength and experience. 

He said there are plenty of fishermen in the vicinity and they buy fish off them. JD asks what kind of curry I like. Vegetarian I say. The son says “we can make a vegetarian curry.” JDs favourite is goat, and his son’s favourite is duck. 

They have a few ducks. They sell the ducklings for $1 apiece and save a few for curry! Poor little feathered friends! 

All this time, JD’s son’s little girl sits 5 feet to the left of us on a chair brought out for her. Quietly present. 

JD has 5 children and they are all educated. 

“I used to get hidings in school, his son shared with a smile.” “My marks were not good enough, so the teacher would give me a hiding and make me go up to the board the next day to explain the solution to the problem to show that I had learned the lesson and understood.” He laughed out loud. The hidings quickly made me learn better. But now there are no hidings in school, not even expulsions. 

They told us that their ancestors were from southern India and came at the behest of the British to work in the plantations. Since then, their generations have studied and worked hard to improve their life style. 

When I asked the son what year the Indians came to Fiji, he did not know. He asked his 8-year-old daughter and she put her head in her hands and giggled and said she did not know. I will have to Google this and then we will all know. 

“You want some fish curry?” JD asks. “Maybe another time, I say. We should be getting back before dark.” 

JD’s son asks if we like rum. I like it I say, it is my favourite drink. 

 “We make rum here in Fiji. Bounty rum. It is my favourite too. I have a bottle and will open it.” He says cordially. 

In no time he is back with an unopened bottle. He pours a tot into our Pepsi—none for himself or his Dad, just for us. We toast to their health and stand to leave thanking them for their hospitality and ensuring that we will take them up on a curry before we leave Fiji. 

All this time, their wives remained inside the home…..but came out when called to say goodbye.

Happy Diwali! Happy for having shared the light of goodwill in JD and their family’s lives, and being reminded that the fabric of family is to be nurtured and cherished as foundation for being. 

We walk back along the dusty road. It is twilight. Through the trees the red sky looks to be burning. I run through First Landing so that I can catch the last of the sun’s fire before it succumbs to darkness. 

 *My favourite young Fijian assistant chef, Jay, had been in a car accident and leg injuries flared up that prevented him binge there for celebration—what added joy he would have brought to the festival.