Ganesh Chaturthi: Then and Now

As the city welcome its Elephant head God, the remover of obstacles, for the next 10 days (or is it 12??? Not too sure), I am flooded with memories from my childhood and my fascination with the festival.

I can clearly picture myself standing in my gallery, eagerly waiting to catch a glimpse of the idols as they passed by. I remember hopping from one pandal to another, with my family, friends and neighbours, marvelling at the enormity of the idol, the beauty of the decorations, the theme, the set up, but never accepting Prasad or putting tikka (a very catholicky thing). 

I recollect waiting to listen to this song that  mostly could be heard during the festival (before the advent of the songs we hear today) "Deva-o-deva Ganpati Deva tum say badkar kaun". I would wait to listen to it on Chaiyageet or Chitrahar (the then version of MTV).

On visarjan day my balcony would be crowded with neighbours, who would join the countless devotees who lined the road and pavements to catch a glimpse of the Lalbaug cha Raja, much to the dismay of my poor Honu (my doggie... who would be all upset from the beating of the drums and crackers).

Here was a festival that was unique to my city (till I discovered that other cities and states too celebrate it) and filled  me with a feeling of devotion.

However, over the years this feeling has vained. Though I am still fascinated by the festivals and the idols, however, the realisation of the chaos and inconvenience that the festival causes began to get to me. It is not that I hated the festival, just hated the way it is celebrated today. Over the years we seem to have lost sight of the real purpose behind celebrating the festival. Some where down the line, the way we celebrated the festival and the reason why we celebrated it,  has totally changed (just like Diwali and Christmas).

What was meant to bring society together is now putting a wedge in it. It is a now a competition of one upmanship, to be better than the next. Gone are the devotional songs, replacing them are the Bollywood ones, that sometimes leave you perplexed and embarrassed.

For the next couple of days, the already jammed roads of Mumbai will be stretched beyond it capacity, adding to the chaos and traffic that has been caused by the construction of the metro. 

Sometimes I wonder how people stand in serpentine queues for hours together for just a couple second of Sarahan. But the same is also true for the Bandra Fair where you have to brave the g push and shove for just a couple seconds of glimpse of Mother Mary.

Previously, the Ganpati idols used be brought quietly at night without much fanfare. This has been reversed, now people bring Ganpati with the same fanfare as they would do for a visarjan.

Mind you, this not just a Hindu thing, other festivals too have slowly been loosing their meaning. Very often Christ goes missing from Christmas which has now become all about Santa Claus and an endless fashion parade.

That said, I still find that serenity and peace and devotion when I spend time at my friends place. Still marvel at the beauty of the murti and the decoration. But most importantly I find the peace that at times has been lost.

We all have the right to celebrate our festivals as per our traditions. These festivals are part of the fabric that's Indian culture. But don't let your celebration be some a pain for others.

Holi at Aptara

When you think Holi you think of bright colors, colored faces, people intoxicated in colors and yes bhang, sometimes even bordering into hooliganism. You think about unknown entities pelting water balloons (not something that's good). You think twice before you step out of your house afraid of being colored, especially if your wearing white.

But on Tuesday the 10th of March the people at Aptara, Pune, found a different way to bring in Holi. It did involve colors, but in a good way. You did have people with colored faces, but it was all in the fun of the event. Each bay in the company was assigned a color. The bay had to come up a way to decorate their bay using the color assigned to them. So you had the blues, reds, greens, oranges, yellows, and the purples.

What started initially with just a couple of groups enthusiastically decorating their bays, slowly caught on through the entire office. Everywhere you had people working with chart paper and kite paper, cellophane paper and paints and brushes, glues and newspapers, sticks and strings, lights and laces, heart shaped balloons and green ferns, and of course colors. You had themes that ranged from social messages to religion to some just decorating their bay to make it look nice.

Greens were used to obviously depict messages to save the Earth and yes money, but then you also had them depict envy (using a cool looking mosaic devil) and shamrocks. Blue was used to create an out of the world theme, space and robots. Those who got yellow used it to depict road signs and yellow pages and help desks. Purple was used to create a gigantic, cool looking spider web, and a decoration using the poetry 'Madhushala' as its central theme. The reds were used to depict love and blood donations. Yes the orange was used as usual to create a religious, phalki.

Everywhere you looked you could just see colors (this could also be due to the fact all the lights were colored paper). You had people visiting areas they hadn't been to before, admiring the decorations and clicking photographs. When the judges came around they were not spared with the colors. The judges were even bribed with fake notes.

At the end of the day you had the orange Phalki group and the red Blood Donation group, taking the 1st and 2nd place respectively. You had various other prices like best wall hanging, best message, best wallpaper, etc. All in all it was fun and colorful way of celebrating the festival. But I am afraid to say there was very little work done. But then all work and no play makes Aptara a dull place. So eagerly waiting for the next Holi to come around.