Halloween at Bandhavi

This Halloween was different from a normal Halloween. Yes, in the evening our SJPD group watched the Glee version of Rocky Horror, and then ended the night with scary movies on TV, but the best part of this Halloween was sharing it with the Bandhavi girls.

It started out as a lazy, relaxed Sunday. Soon after lunch though, Annabel and I ended up hanging out with the Bandhavi girls who had asked us to put our saris on. I wore one of Annabel’s saris since mine wasn’t tailored yet, and we decked ourselves out in whatever we had. It’s always fun getting help from the Bandhavi girls while dressing up. They really get into it, almost as if they’re dressing up dolls. They do our hair, help with make-up and bindis, do and redo the sari, give jewelry advice, and then squeal with joy at the finished product and tell us how beautiful we look.

Thankfully, my parents had sent me a Halloween card in the mail with lots of Halloween stickers to give to the girls. I handed the stickers out and attempted to explain the holiday to them, excited to include them in our low-key celebration away from home. While the girls ate their lunch, Jen and her mom brought a little more Halloween to the girls with a bag of pumpkin candy corn for dessert. It was fun seeing the girls try a sweet that we grew up with. One of the girls I was sitting next to was so shy to try it and was trying to give it to me to eat. I kept telling her it was good and she would like it as she playfully hid her face and giggled. I’m not sure if she ended up trying it or not, but I made sure she kept it on her plate.

Finally, some of the SJPD girls came back from the store with some more candy and handed it out to all the girls again. The girls kept asking whose birthday it was as we continued to explain our holiday of Halloween. Some of them seemed to sort of understand, but I think were still a bit confused. Regardless, it was fun and special to share a little part of our culture.