BurningMan, India Style - Part 1

Darin has told me this numerous times, but after seeing it first-hand, now I agree... India is the closest you'll get to experiencing the crazy colorfulness of BurningMan off the Playa!

I started thinking about this after one long day of Indian tourists asking to take our photo. On the Playa (desert where the festival is held), most people dress in costume to some extent. For those that know me well, you know I like to dress up even for work. While 1920's business suits with fishnets + clunky shoes can be fine for the office, I like to take it up a notch for the week of BurningMan. For me, this has come to mean a different daytime + nightime outfit each day. Every day. While not all outfits are showstoppers, I've devised a couple that we wear as a couple that people really seem to dig. For lack of better names, I'll call these the "Gold Tree People" and the "Silver Bird People" outfits. If you've looked at any of our past pics you'll know which ones' I'm talking about. Anyway, our experiences of wearing these on the Playa are the only times in my life that I've received such attention + staring.

To step back, a big part of the B-Man experience is abouting sharing + giving, and I've made costuming a big way in which I give to the community out there. By the end of the day though, you're spent. Here we're just dressed as plain 'ol westerner's, but a day at a busy Indian tourist site can make you feel like that too. You give, and give... photos, shaking hands + answering questions, but after several hours you just want to yell "Enough!"

But the similiarities go far beyond that. There are SEVERAL physical, visual + emotional parallels... The endless adventure of never knowing what you'll see next, The string of colorful costumes + characters, The need for constant hydration in the heat, The constant dust and feeling like you're never clean, Bike riding, Temples, Funky Art, Music... It would be interesting to count the number of times we say to each other throughout the course of a day, "Check THAT out!"