Ganesh Chaturthi

We lucked out again on the festival scene. Many of you know that one of my life's dreams is to travel around the world and hit every major festival. This dream is somewhere beneath having a horse and above owing my own private island on the list.

Ganesh Chaturthi is the same festival that was ongoing in Diu as here. The basic festival is the same, but the Mumbai festival is about 1 lakh times larger (in India, 1 lakh = 100,000). I won't begin to understand the intricacies of the symbolism of the festival, but basically it is one celebrating the good luck Ganesh brings to the people of Mumbai. In both places, families obtain a Ganesh statue which they decorate and worship for anywhere between 1 - 13 days. One can buy the statue from many roadside stores. Seeing five 8-foot tall Ganesh figures sitting on the side of the road is a surreal sight.

The statues and pandals (the statue in a scene) of larger families and groups often have themes. Ahmedabad (a large city in the state of Gujarat and Nisha Bhatt's ancestral town) was the promotion of female children and their education. In Mumbai, it is the farmer suicide to highlight the poverty of rural India's farmers. A person my visit many pandals around the city, causing a line to form in one today up to 2.5km long. Some of the pandals are engaged in a fierce judging by the Times of India-picked celebrity staff. Often people will present gifts to Ganesh in hope for or in thanks of good luck (ie a child, or prosperity in business). One Mumbai couple presented a Ganesh idol a 9 lakh (900,000 Rs) gold sash in thanks of their new pregnancy after trying 11 years.

After the puja has been preformed twice daily, the family then parades the idol down the street. The men dance to the drums and keyboard of a hired band, the truck with the idol follows, with the women trailing in the back. I only saw women dancing in 2 of the 50 or so processions that night. Covered with and throwing pink, purple, and yellow powdered tempra paint, the men and boys dance themselves into a sweaty frenzy. The destination of this parade is the beautifully arched, nearly 10 km long Chowpatty Beach. After the musicians are abandoned, the procession has a solemn puja on the beach. Finally, the men of the families (and a few women) carry out the Ganesh idol into the Chowpatty bay for immersion in the night water. This sounds easier than it looks. The water is only about 2 feet deep for nearly 100 feet out. The larger idols need to be brought about 200 feet offshore before they can be immersed. Every year a few people drown.

I tried to capture this scene with pictures, but being the night, and trying to be respectful, I really could not. The black beach was covered with people chanting, trucks backing up, giant balloon sellers, and head massage guys. There was rain drainage and small waves lapping over disfigured idols washed ashore. In the water were hundreds of people for as far out as you cous see accompanied by the sound of drumming from all around the bay.

We watched this scene and then stood for a few hours around the parade route. Many people wanted to take a picture with us causing the cop to come and move the crowd along. Ian danced Punjabi-style with a few of the processions.

I'll try to load the pictures up, so far unsuccessful in Mumbai.

A great festival. Strangely, we were the only Western tourists!

- Nisha