For the next six months the mood of the city is said to stay upbeat and the trials of the monsoon are forgotten.
On Friday we took a drive into South Bombay and saw a large Ganesh image being towed up the main street on the wrong side of the road to a place where the locals can come and pray. As tradition dictates, in 10 days time this and other large community images will be immersed in the most convenient body of water to signal the end of the festival.
The Ganesh images come in all shapes and sizes and for this festival are made from clay mostly but more are being made of toxic plaster now due to the intricate work of shape and paint. Craftsmen take months to make the idols which range in price from Rs80-Rs300,000 ($2.50-$8000+) Thanks to Shagga who visited us during monsoon we have a Ganesh on the dash of Noddy the Ambassador..
Today we were fortunate to be invited to take part in the family celebration of owners of our apartment. We rolled around to the family house with Lif and Ash after watching the North Queensland Cowboys beat the NZ Warriors in the Juhu Pavilion with the Mumbai mob.
We were warmly welcomed and made our way to the family alter to pray after sprinkling Ganesh with red and white sandlewood powder from a carnation flower. We learned that Ganesh is the favored God in Hindu religion for if you pray to him your prayers are surely to come to fruition. Good God to know...
The Ganesh is draped in flowers and surrounded by offerings of food, gifts and money. This is a time for families to get together and this house felt a lot like an Australian house at Christmas/Boxing day... There was plenty of food and the TV was on with the Cricket, India v NZ..
It's said that on the last day of the festival, millions of people of all ages descend onto the streets leading up to the sea, dancing and singing to the rhythmic accompaniment of drums and cymbals. Around our way there was no waiting. The drums were beating and there were hundreds of thousands of people making their way to the beach late in the afternoon bringing their day of celebration to an end.
We joined our surrogate Indian family once again on the beach this time for the finale. Songs were sung to the clash of cymbals, a coconut was broken as part of a blessing and it was time for the lads to put the image of Ganesh on their shoulders and walk out to neck deep water where they dunked him into the ocean. This scene was being repeated up and down the length of Juhu beach some families louder than others with fireworks booming every minute or so..
Something else we learned today, in 1893, a fellow named Lokmanya Tilak transformed the annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the higher caste Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharshtra. Tilak chose Ganesha as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman." Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. National pride gave the Indians another reason to celebrate.
No comments:
Post a Comment