The Ganapati Festival

India became FABULOUS this weekend. The Ganapati Festival just ended, and it was INCREDIBLY AMAZING. I understand this culture in such a deeper way after experiencing it. The Ganapati Festival is a Hindu celebration in honor of Ganesh, the elephant-head god. Ganesh is one of thousands upon thousands of gods in the Hindu religion, each with their own specific specialty. Ganesh is the god of good luck, opportunity, and prosperity. The celebration happens in public and in the home, with colorful and elaborately decorated clay idols of Ganesh in temporary shrines throughout the city. The same thing happens at home.
The idea is that Ganesh has come to visit Hindus for these ten days, and everyone aims eagerly to show their hospitality. People go to loved ones' homes during this festival to see and worship their Ganesh, leave some type of offering, and eat loads of delicious food.
Every family decorates their shrine differently, but they are always beautiful. Some have flashing lights and sweets, pastries, vegetables, fruits, and flowers displayed all around Ganesh. It's really a sight to take in.
We went to so many houses that I cannot even begin to remember how many. It was just a whirlwind of small talk, the most amazing food I've ever eaten, and lots and lots of Ganesh idols. In the end, I felt connected to all the festivities, as well as the religious aspect behind it all, in a really interesting way. I grew up with kind of a weird view of religion - my dad is Jewish but doesn't really practice it, and my mom is Quaker but also doesn't really practice it - but both were present enough in my life to make me thoroughly confused by the time I was seven or eight. But this - this Ganapati Festival - made so much sense to me. I understood why people care so much, and I like what it all stands for. I love the overarching theme of community and hospitality that accompanies it, and I think the sense of neighborly compassion that it instills is vitally important and nourishing to the soul.

Me after performing aarti in front of our Ganesh idol in my host house!

At the end of the festival, it's time for Ganesh to go. Small children will often get teary-eyed at this point, because after these ten days of worshipping, singing, and praying to him, he has become a part of the family. The family sings one last aarti to Ganesh, and then, according to tradition, the whole family walks the Ganesh down to the river and lets him float away. One of my single favorite and also, maybe, most intense, for lack of a better word, moments of India so far was seeing a poor family coming out of the slum area nearby to my apartment building, with the father proudly carrying their small Ganesh idol. The children - all four of them - and the mother followed close behind him. There were hundreds of other families doing this same thing that night - rich, poor, and everything in between. If you are a poor person in India, religion and family is everything. Life is hard, but you make your way through these little moments. The whole thing was so beautiful but also heartbreaking, and I found myself crying a little watching this family singing a sad song while carrying their Ganesh to the river.

Because there are so many industries now in Pune, the rivers have become extremely polluted. It's an issue that even people who couldn't care less about the environment are forced to think about: the water crisis in India is real. Most houses don't have water for at least seven or eight hours of the day. This has caused a backlash in this generations-old tradition of bringing the small Ganesh idols to the river on the tenth day. My host mom, for example, puts her Ganesh idol back in the closet after the festival. I think that is awful, given that she really would prefer to bring it to the river, just as her mother and her mother's mother did with their families. The worst thing is that the families who take this festival the most seriously are usually the poorer ones, because it is a highlight of their year. To tell them - such as the poor family emerging from the slums with their humble Ganesh idol - that they can no longer do that because big business has polluted the rivers too much is simply heartbreaking and honestly quite maddening. Can't we find something else to ban? There's plenty.
It makes me want to fight for a world that is clean enough and healthy enough that rivers can handle some small Ganesh idols placed there by people whose carbon footprint is about as close to zero as they come.

But, I digress.

The Ganapati Festival is a very class-divisive thing. On the last night of the festival, all of the poor people of India crowd the streets - there are literally thousands upon thousands of them. They drink a lot and dance a lot and there is the loudest music I have ever heard in my life blasting from massive speakers. We (the American students) were all warned a thousand times not to go to this part of the festival because it is dangerous. But my friends and I, of course, were curious and our innate sense of adventure was blaring inside of us. We had to go.

The higher class people think of this whole aspect of the festival as dumb and just an excuse to drink and party. They think that the people who attend (mostly 13-25 year old boys) aren't doing it for Ganesh at all, and rather for their own fun. I agree with all of this, but I also see the inherent greatness in it. Poor Indian people work so hard at jobs that are often backbreaking, and they want to let loose once a year. I think it's alright.
So despite the recommendations to do otherwise, we gathered some of our Indian friends and pepper spray and made our way into the madness:


It was insane. I've never seen so many people in my whole life. We had to hold hands the whole way to keep from getting lost (which, really, would have been an absolute nightmare.) But we experienced something that is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that is what this is all about, right?