GANESH

***This was written several week ago but I just had a chance to post it now!

Just when I thought I had experienced all the emotions and excitement India has to offer, I was surprised once again. The part of India I am living in has spent the last several months preparing for the Ganesh festival and I have been watching all the preparations going on around me but had no idea about the magnitude of this celebration. Ganesh started out as a private religious ceremony celebrated in the home with the family. During the time of British colonization, as a technique to mobilize people, community leaders used Ganesh as an excuse to bring people together outside of their homes and into the streets to protest. Since then, this tradition of publically celebrating Ganesh has remained intact.
This Sunday we went to Pune to see the first day of the festival. The streets were filled with youth, similarly dressed chanting to the streets and banging their drums with huge beautiful hand painted statues of Ganesh adorning the streets on floats. As we walked a bit further we saw one temple after another, built right in the middle of the city solely for the purpose of Ganesh with colorful elaborate décor on the inside and people hand painting elephants in gold on the outside. It is a sight that is honestly not describable in words.

Even more impressive then the esthetic beauty of the Ganesh festival is the joy that people feel around this time. I found it really hard, coming from a western perspective of religion and spiritually to fully understand what Ganesh represents and stands for. In the Hindu scriptures, Ganesh or Ganpati was a boy who was a god and was obeying his mother when his father became angry and beheaded him. His mother was so upset about his death that his father ordered someone to go out and find Ganesh’s head. The first animal they came across was an elephant and they then beheaded the elephant and put it on Ganesh’s body and he was brought back to life. When I first heard this story my initial reaction was that people cannot really believe this, it is so unrealistic and in a country where some of the most intelligent, innovative people live, they have to know that this is a myth. The more I thought about this I realized that people do not really obsess over whether something is true or not or if it really happened like we do in the west. Here I think truth is somewhat relevant and instead of focusing on the falsities of the religious stories, people appreciate what this god and celebration brings into their lives which is being humble enough to see that there is something greater than your existence on earth.

As we continued our walk around the city and were admiring the temples, my friend had an idea to actually go in and give an offering to Ganesh. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive as in western societies it can be considered disrespectful to participate in a religious ceremony in which you are not observant of, yet everyone around us encouraged us to do this and said it is considered an honor. So we went to one of the hundreds of street vendors surrounding the temple and bought flowers (Ganesh is also a huge source of income and revenue for this area). We made our way through the crowd and the long staircase and finally arrived at the huge Ganesh statue. As I reached the stage, several of the Brahmins (who are the priests in Hindu religion and also the top of the caste hierarchy) guided us on how to give an offering to Ganesh. As I went through all of the motions and gave my offering the Brahmin said to me, “Now, pray to god.” I looked behind me and saw a crowd of about 4000 and thought, “How can I pray to god now with all these people staring at me. And I don’t believe Ganesh is god.” Instead of letting these throughts take over, I decided to just try and really experience what the people in India so strongly believe in. I can’t lie and say that I was suddenly overcome with spirituality but I can say that for a few moments, time stood still and I didn’t even realize the crowd of 4000 around me. I just appreciated everything that had brought me to this point in my life. Ironically, Ganesh is the god of new experiences and each time someone is embarking on a new endeavor in life such as a job, marriage a move etc. Ganesh is worshipped.

For the second day of Ganesh I went back to the village that I have been working in and it was such an interesting experience to see the various ways in which this festival is celebrated from the lavish huge excitement of the city to the much smaller more intimate ways it is observed in the rural villages. As I walked from the truck stop through the village to the home of the family I stay with I saw many small little areas dedicated to Ganesh with flowers, fruit offerings, colorful lights and decorations surrounding the statues. In the village it is common to have a community Ganesh and then also for each family to have their own Ganesh. Each night, the community comes together at the common Ganesh and observes Artie which is basically a praising of the god of Ganesh in which offerings are given, a special song is sang and praying is done. Being among the community members and celebrating this with people I know and have grown to love dearly was so wonderful. Through their singing and celebratory nature I felt so much life and excitement. Since I was a guest, they asked me to conduct the ceremony in which incense are burnt around the Ganesh statue to praise him while covering our heads. Then I went around and gave a small offering of sweets which is called ‘prasat’ symbolizing that when you give good things come to you in return. As we finished our community Artie ceremony we went inside the home to conduct the ceremony with our family. It is tradition to dress up and be elegant for this celebration. Because of this, my host mom insisted that I wear her wedding Saree. Without putting up too much of a fight, I agreed and we then redid the whole ceremony within the home.

As I returned back to Rajgurunagar, I realized that every corner I turned there was something going on; plays with children dressed up reenacting the Ganesh story or story of the king of Maharashtra, talent competitions, people covered in pink powder dancing in the streets and theatrical dance performances. As I would walk down the street people would continuously open their home to me and ask me to come in to see their Ganesh and take prasat and to their surprise, I would happily oblige, even if I didn’t know the family. This is all part of the tradition of Ganesh.

Each time I think I have seen and learned everything there is to experience in India, I encounter something that completely takes me by surprise and the Ganesh festival is no exception. I never in my life thought I would have the opportunity to see such beautiful things and experience a ceremony that is so rich and spiritual which means so much to so many people. I truly am so fortunate for this experience…