I say attempted because William wanted to "do himself"... so the kite didn't go very far :) A guy we know in the neighboring building, though, was doing a fantastic job with his family. In the evening, he even got a kite up in the air with three candle boxes hanging on the string. Beautiful! Now that our terrace has plants and is pleasant to sit out on, we had quite a fun evening watching all the kites from the roof tops around us.
The doll display is sort of like the Japanese hinasama put out on March 3, especially since it sounds like only families with girls put out the display. The Japanese display is with the various people of the imperial court. The Telugu display is more religious oriented -- they had the goddess Laxmi on top, Krishna and his 10 avatars next, then people in the nine traditional professions (weaving cotton, potting, weaving saris, hmm... I can't remember the other six...), then some other dolls they had collected that they liked (including an English shepherdess who was selling beer!), and then animals at the bottom. I got the feeling that you could have any dolls you wanted out; the order or content wasn't that important.
They also did some ceremony for the unmarried girls - like most Hindu ceremonies I've seen, it involved sprinkling of flower petals and swirling of an oil flame. No one could really tell me much about it except it was a blessing .... so I can't really tell you much! One person also thought it was funny that we came, since William is not a girl (though he didn't get the blessing; we just observed). Thankfully, though, my neighbor pointed out that we don't have much time left in India, so she invited us so we could have the experience.
It all ended with copious amounts of food and the grandmas trying to force me to eat more. This is an absolute staple at any Indian function I have attended!
(sorry for the ugly prose; I'm a little tired and not writing well, but I thought I should write something!)
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