October festivals (part 3)

Let’s look at two more October festivals from Europe and India.

Entenrennen (rubber duck race) – Alleenbrucke, Tubingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany

We’ve all heard of the Running of the Bulls as well as other derbies around the world, but this one isn’t exactly what one might except from a heart thumping race, it’s a rubber ducky race.

But this is as spectacular as inexplicable an event in which a truck dumps about seven thousand rubber duckies into the Neckar River, and whilst the ducks float downriver, scores of crowds lining the river banks cheer them on.

The cheering is due to the fact that most of the participants are actually holding tickets with a number that corresponds to one of the speeding ducks.

The winner of this race will win its patron a one thousand Euro holiday voucher, with lots of prizes for the runners-up.

Diwali – Mumbai, India

This is India’s Festival of Lights in which Hindus celebrate Krishna’s birth and Rama’s victory over the ten-headed demon-king Ravana.

In celebration of these events, Hindus burn butter and oil lamps so as to help guide Rama home from exile, because according to the Ramayana, Rama spent his exile fighting demons in dark forests while also resisting a seduction attempt by Ravana’s sister. But regardless which precise Hindu deity they worship – and there are about 330 of them – the Festival of Lights is a time of all-around positivity and joy, coming at the end of the harvest seasons, it’s meant to be a period of relative prosperity for the poor country and is something of an equivalent of Christmas, in Western terms.

Be careful and mind the children who will be throwing firecrackers in the street.

The festival also has regional variations which generally include ceremonies devoted to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth by worshipping account books because the new financial year begins.

Both these events are best visited with the help of some car rental services.