My mom always told me about Ganesha Chaturthi being her favorite festival. Since we got Zee TV, she would call us excitedly to show us people celebrating Ganapti in the streets of Mumbai. We watched without much interest. It honestly just mostly looked crowded to me.
Then last year I went to India during Ganapati and I finally understood. I’d been told over and over that no one celebrated it like Mumbai and I saw it for myself. There was a constant cadence of drums, even into the late hours of night and the early hours of the morning (sound pollution? disturbing the peace? doesn’t exist in India…least of all during Ganapati). There were beautiful elaborate Ganapati statues everywhere - massive ones like Lalbaugcha Raja and the GSB Ganapati (I saw the latter for myself and was stunned and overcome).
I saw people put on performances, saw my sweet little cousin put on a mask and become the Ganesha for a dance performance. People were constantly dancing in the streets as they took their Ganesha statue to submerge it in the ocean of the closest body of water. It didn’t matter if there were cars, bikes, buses, taxis waiting to get through the already congested streets. I had a dream too, about Ganapati, one that put at me at peace.
I understand now why my mom loves it so much. I wish I could be there right now.
