Quote

"Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out." Harry S. Truman

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Good Bye, Ganesh... until next year !

After more than ten days of poojas, Ganesha's festival ended yesterday. Roads had been cordoned off. Most buses didn't run, and the few auto-rickshaw drivers who ventured in the streets charged double, even triple. The whole city resonated with the pulse of the beating drums, and everywhere, trucks, big and small, carrying Ganesh statues, converged towards the lake Husain Sagar, where huge cranes awaited the statues to immerge them in the water.

I try to imagine the botton of the lake, today, and think about something that my 3-year-old daughter said, not long ago, after she'd finished her lunch. "The bread, the ham and the cheese are inside my belly and they're all talking to each other now." Maybe all the Ganeshas are having a conversation. Or maybe it all looks like an underwater dump, crowded and dirty. A desolate factory full of broken statues piling up in the darkness.

I sound gloomy, and it's a shame, because I really like Ganesha and I also want to remember the joy and cheerful spirit of that festival. Here are a few more pictures, some hastily shot while driving... oops !

 


 


 


 
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your pieces on the festival. I showed the pictures and talked about it to my son Will. What happens to the statues after they are immersed in water? Are they brought home and saved for next year or left in the water?

Katia said...

Sue, thanks for stopping by AND leaving a comment :) I'm glad you had Will read it. And no, the statues are not brought home and saved. They're just left to rot underwater. That's the problem, and why I always feel sad and ambivalent about the whole thing. It's terrible for the environment. The gods are immersed in the sacred water, and that's it. The same way the bodies of dead people used to be immersed in the waters of the Ganges, which is THE sacred river for the Hindus. Now, it is forbidden by law...