Day 11: Ganesh's Rising

I slept in, had the day off from work.

I went over to a friend’s house at about 4 to hang out and wait for the Ganesh festivities to begin. On the way to her house, we stopped and looked at a few Ganpatis, the Ganesh shrines that people had set up in their neighborhoods. We also walked by a loud procession of Ganesh goers, drums, dancing, idol, and all. I also started seeing people with red powder all over them, like I had seen at the park. There were a lot of people with red on them.

At the Ganpatis, we would walk in, my friend would make a reverence, and then people would give us candy. At the first big one, the G’s head had a light in it that made it change color as you watched. That was cool. The woman at the shrine gave us sugary rice with peanuts in it.

The next Ganpati was big and gold. Glorious and shiny. Up on a platform, it had one big G, one small G, some offerings and incense, and 2 small statues of rats. I asked why the rats? My friend told me that the rat is G’s animal, and that in the stories about him he rides around on a rat. There is another character, I think it is G’s brother, who rides around on a cobra. I observed that this must be a huge rat, like the rodents of unusual size in “The Princess Bride,” but she didn’t follow. Too specific a cultural reference, I guess. She also said that there is a temple in Mumbai to Ganesh that has an idol of the rat. Apparently, the best way to get through to Ganesh is by whispering your requests into the rat’s ear. G will hear you. The temple has huge lines year round.

The candy we got at the second place was peanut sweetness, deep fried coconut sugar, and rice/couscous stuff with hints of rosemary and peanut. I could have eaten the peanutty sweetness all day.

At the third place, no candy. There was a worship service going on, so we stood at the back listening to the singing. It surprised me how everyone knew all the words to the prayers they were singing. After the prayer, a guy came through the crowd with a flame, and women held their hands over the flame and then slicked their hair back. I don’t know what that means, and I forgot to ask.

I forgot to ask because right after I saw this, we went up to the shrine to take a look at the Ganesh. There were two large mermaids in all their mermaid glory spouting water and covering the elephant god’s flanks, and a big blue god reining above him. (his dad Shiva, I think) My eyes must have been huge. There was a lot going on all in one spot. I don’t really get the mermaids, exactly. What their significance is. They were a really unusual decoration. I guess someone just likes mermaids.

After that we went back to her apartment for a little while to wait for the evening to start. We watched some of the cricket match from last night, apparently it was a big match between India and Pakistan, for the world cup, or whatever it is in cricket. The team is a young team and no one expected them to get as far as they did, and India hasn’t won the cup since the early eighties. That was why everyone was so excited. India won.

(Sidebar: One of my coworkers was telling me a little about cricket. He started off by explaining that baseball is basically an over simplified version of cricket and rounders, and earned himself an evil glare. He got as far as telling me about how football is basically rugby, watered down, before I made him retreat. Really, not that I care about baseball or football, but still, there are limits.)

We also watched a little American pro wrestling, which, inexplicably, my friend likes. People are fun.

We went out at about 5:30. They were very concerned about losing me in the crowd, and held my hands and arms as we worked through the crowd or crossed streets. (I think I may have to go back to my theory that I possess some sort of idiot look to Indian people.)

We saw a procession heading off to the water with some medium sized Gs. My friend’s mom gave some candy to the idol as an offering, and was given back a handful of the stuff that everyone else had given mixed together. There were big pieces of sugar, and candy coated balls, and dried fruit. And twigs. I am not sure what the twigs were for.

We went over to the street where the idols were heading down to the water. There was a beach about 20 minutes away, and long processional routes for different parts of town were printed in the paper during the week so people would know where to go with their idols. I think the processional stuff started late afternoon, and probably went on until about 1 am. The procession was really long and moved really slowly.