Remembering Ganesh Festival in India

An old writeup of mine ... posting it to coincide with this year's festival

On the previous evening of Ganesh Festival of 2001, my brother-in-law told me "hey karthik, let's go to Albertson's for some groceries". I just joined him

and his dad. We drove to the place. I asked him then, "hey, how come we are shopping at Albertson's, that too with such a huge list?". His dad told, "tomorrow is Ganesh Festival". BUZZ!! Suddenly i was lost for a few minutes in the many Ganesh Festivals back home. This, is just a weak effort looking back at those wonderful days.

Hindu festivals, irrespective of the religious aspect, have always been something we looked for. Firstly, it meant a vacation day. But, beyond that was something much more special. It was the actual day. It was so very resplendent with all the beautiful colors of the new clothes people wore and the fresh flowers and fruits on sale everywhere, coupled with the hectic activity. It used to look like the colors of holi bursting everywhere. The doors in the house were decorated with mango leaves which had a strangely attractive aroma about themselves, telling you that this was a very special day.

Perhaps, the most colorful aspect was about the flowers. Truckloads of them were spread out on the pavements like a flower show, with all their wonderful colors. The interesting part was, these surprisingly fresh flowers had a very high price tag stuck to them. two days before or after the festival, you would probably get the same flowers for a fifth or maybe even a tenth of its price on the festival day. But on that day, the vendors ruled!! They'd say "75 bucks saar, take it or leave it!!" Wow! that may sound rude, but hey! they have a truckload to sell and there are people to buy those flowers. I remember negotiating for 5 or 10 bucks off this price and have a smile for myself at the nice deal I got myself. Today, i realize that i might have stolen that money from a poor man who was also planning on celebrating the festival. Anyways, I do remember though that there used to be a few nice vendors, who would voluntarily cut down the price and sell it with a nice smile, provided you bought one or two more not-so-costly items from them that you had originally planned not to buy. Among all this business, for the person with an eye for beauty, there were lots'a beautiful young ladies dressed in beautiful colors looking around for flowers like you and something more. This was like an added bonus. I caught myself today asking a friend of mine, who just came back from india, about how his flower shopping went for the festival!!!

Perhaps the most important part of the Ganesh Festival was, buying the Ganesh idol. The city used to be full of Ganesh idols of various sizes, colors and shapes. Off late Lord Ganesh has gone quite hep, playing cricket, using a computer et.al. The activity around these stalls never ceased. I always wanted to buy a huge Ganesh, don't know why though. Probably it looked good. But my mom was scared that, if during the process of transit to the house, the idol would suffer some fracture it would not be a good omen!! Transporting the idol used to be thus, always kind of a scary process. At the doorstep of the house, my mom used to then perform arathi to the idol and then we used to place the idol at the place for pooja.

Coming to the actual festival celebration. Man!! it was something really memorable. The day started with the ceremonial oil application to the body, followed by a nice soapnut headbath. There was no 'casette priest' like the present day but my father performed the pooja. it was really elaborate. my mom, used to spend most of the previous day of the festival preparing lots'a goodies most importanly the 'kadubu', which is said to be Ganesha's favorite. Of course, we were not allowed to go anywhere close to the kitchen because the food was to be first offered to God. Well, the wait would be worth it 'coz they were really tasty. The pooja used to be a real long one, my dad used to do the pooja going according to the book. What do i do? Well all those colorful flowers lying around the large quantity of turmeric and vermilion looked real attractive. I used to make a neat decoration of the flowers around the idol and later sprinkle turmeric and vermilion on it, to give it a neat look. My mom says that, when i was very real young, i was as interested but with lot more enthusiasm, which meant i ended up throwing the flowers et.al. all around the place!!! After the pooja it used to be that wonderful lunch with lots'a varieties of nice food. this obviously led to the nice holiday afternoon nap. In the evening, we used to don our new clothes which looked very colorful. We'd love to do this and be extra cheerful. We used to visit our relatives and friends to exchange good wishes for the festival. In total it used to be a very eventful day.

The next important thing used to be the immersion of the idol. Though we used to just settle for an immersion of the idol in our backyard tank, there were people who used to take the idols to nearby lakes for immersion. Man!! for nearly the next one month following the festival there used to be lots of idols being immersed with shouts of "ganapathi bappa moreya...." et.al. the festival also brought a lot of enthusiasm in the youth associations of the year, to organize major celebrations of the festival. What this usually meant was loud music well into early morning and lots'a other disturbances. We felt the ill-effects, especially during exams. of course there used to be some nice cultural programmes like dramas, concerts et.al. Sometimes high profile ministers
used to visit these places. That sounds cool, especially when you try to imagine if the governor of California would visit San Jose Ganesh Mitramandali. Lot more memories pass by, some of them much more close to heart, when all of a sudden i hear, "Sir, the raisins are in the aisle next to the frozen food section". What??? I then realize, neither is this the crowded Malleswaram market nor am I in Bangalore celebrating the festival, but in a place thousands of miles away from home. Needless to say, this year's festival was quite low key with a small pooja and a quite dinner. no new clothes, no friends or relatives house visits, no loud speaker playing one of those famous Ganesh songs.

As am typing these words, a new song starts on the CD am listening to and kishore kumar sings "koi lauta de mere beete hue din...."

P.S.: The Ganesh festival of 2007 was unlike the sadness evoked in the last few lines. This was my first one after marriage. So that was a whole another experience with Ramya cooking yummy stuff and being around the Pooja. Also, met up with lots of family and friends, some of them newly married too ... so it had its own touch of uniqueness. :-)