Orulai

Last night I got to experience the powerful and pulsating ritual of orulai, a monthly event here at TTS. Orulai means "one pot", and is meant to demonstrate solidarity with the poor through the sharing of a common meal, but it is also a loud and joyful celebration of drumming and dancing and community spirit.

This festival grew out of the lenten tradition of eating kanchi, or rice porridge, on Ash Wednesday. At the suggestion of students, this simple meal became a monthly tradition, to help students remember and experience the life of the poor. Eventually, this practice was combined with another common meal initiated by one of the faculty in which the community came together to prepare and eat a simple meal to demonstrate the rejection of caste, class, and gender barriers (there are taboos against different castes eating together).

So, Orulai was born, and now is organized on the last Wed. of every month. All the students come together and cook the kanchi in clay pots over small fires. They create a traditional design on the ground and place all of the pots in a circle around the drawing. Each person contributes a small, equal amount towards the food, so that money and labor for the meal are equally shared by each person, regardless of class or background.

As the meal is being cooked, some student beat drums (the parai, a traditional drum of the Dalits), and there's singing, shouting, and a generally festive atmosphere. Then, as the kanchi finishes cooking, the drumming gets more intense and the 'invitation' portion of the festival begins. The crowd forms a procession, led by the drums, and parades through the campus (a large, residential area that is almost like an entire village), inviting everyone who hears them to come for the dinner - faculty, manual laborers, family members, etc... Every so often, the drummers stop and form a circle, and people dance frantically in the middle, and the invitation is shouted out by the group.

Once the procession makes its way back to the pots (sweaty and tired from all that dancing), of course there is more drumming and dancing, especially in the circle around the pots. First, the women were invited to dance in the center, then the men, and finally the transgendered persons (who seem to have a relatively large presence in India, although they often tend to be excluded from society). Then everyone sat around the pots and had songs and prayers that renewed their committment to the poor. The smaller pots of kanchi were all poured into one large pot, and the meal was served to everyone.

It was a really moving and fun experience, dancing along with everyone and having a good time, but also remembering the meaning behind the ritual.

A handout describing the meaning of the ceremony was given to me, which I'll summarize below:

• "Orulai Kanchi" reminds us that we are surrounded by the poor and the need for our committment and participation in their struggles of liberation.



• Orulai emphasizes that we are all children of God and need to break the barriers of caste, class and patriarchy.



• Orulai brings us into the family of the children of God, breaking narrow family bonds.




• The simple and equal contribution for our Orulai makes everyone equal.



• Orulai stands against globalization and its manifestation against humankind, especially the poor and nature, such as the fast food joints that have penetrated out society and deplete our economy.


• Orulai is proof for abundance in the life of sharing and living. If the community shares resources and labor equally there will only be abundance.