Ganpati Bappa: Loved or Lost.

Modern Ganesha painted by me::Acrylic on canvas.

I faintly remember as a kid, my parents used to take my sister and me to see the Ganeshas during ganeshutsav. Those were the times when commuting across the Vashi bridge was almost like a small vacation for us. Visiting Ganesh pandals was an exciting part of our lives as kids. For me it was like an adventure looking at the well decorated and beautifully lit pandals. We used to wait amidst the lesser crowd and shorter lines as compared to today, in anticipation, waiting for a glimpse of our ganpati bappa.

I remember one particular incident when I was perched on my mom’s hand, waiting in line for one of the famous ganpatis and I was super excited as mom kept on adding on to our inquisitiveness with mythical stories of the elephant headed god. I remember mom taking me in front of the huge idol and the mystical effect it had on me. Even as a kid, I couldn’t contain my awe looking up at the soft dewy eyed god in front of me.  As we left, I was enthralled and from then on Ganesh was my favorite God.

The love continued for many years, and I used to collect Ganesh idols of every shape, size material, made some, painted loads, even carved them out of chalks. My friends knew what exactly to gift me on my birthdays. It was pure obsession.

 While returning home from work last week during a 5^th Ganesh visarjan day, I was stuck in terrible traffic. There was chaos all around.Ganesh idols being taken in a truck with disco lights and Bollywood music, youth almost drunk dancing on the streets. For me it was an ugly and disgusting sight. I began to retrospect on the reverence of the festival in today’s day and age. Politicians throwing money around, with their obnoxious faces plastered on the life size posters. It made me think that would the lord really feel it was worth a visit? A day after immersion was even more pathetic, with broken lifeless pieces of the idols lying in the gutters and on the creek. It made me think, would the ignorance and callous attitude of people towards environment and other people actually appease the lord? We welcome the lord with so much love and reverence but fail to respect our social and ecological environment. People show love and respect and worship the idols, prepare elaborate delicacies to appease the god, but fail to even look at the pollution caused due to immersion of flowers, plastic bags and Plaster of Paris idols in the lakes and ocean.  Call for ecological Ganesh festivities have also seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

I haven’t visited a single pandal since last few years. I don’t think god would reside in any of them as well. I still love my bappa and today being the last day sure makes me feel a sense of sadness that my beloved god is going, but also gives me a sense of relief that the chaos will be over. My favorite childhood memories have been replaced by this disturbing reality of environment pollution and pandal politics. I say with absolute love and admiration  ”Ganpati bappa moraya “,but don’t know if I should say “come soon next year”, as I doubt that lord Ganesh would himself be pleased to come down to earth.

||एकदन्ताय वाक्रतुन्दया गौरी तानाह्या  धीमही ||
||गाजेशानया भाल्चान्द्रया श्री गणेशाय धीमही ||