Do We Celebrate Ganeshotsav Right? A Question We Must Ask Ourselves...

The festival of Ganeshotsav is already going on across the country, filling people with energy and lighting up every road of the city. Being born and brought up in Mumbai, I haven’t seen Ganeshotsav celebrations in other parts of the country much but, I am pretty sure the festival drives entire Mumbai crazy, filling people with zest and enthusiasm. With thousands flooding the roads to seek the blessings of their beloved Ganpati bappa in pandals, this is one festival that I had loved since my childhood.

The festival was primarily started by Tilak to bring people together under the name of celebration and unite India in general. It is indeed commendable that people have nurtured the legacy and continued the festival to date. However, over the years, the nature of the festival and that of celebrations has changed phenomenally. Where it was a time for people to come together, celebrate with love and for peace in the country, the basic essence has been lost these days.

To start with, many news channels and newspapers have been reporting the miserable state of Ganesh idols after the visarjan which is indeed a heart-melting and a pathetic sight. The Lord whom we bring home with so much love and respect is left in a miserable condition after the visarjan, lying on the beaches of Mumbai. Not only is it a disgusting sight but something that pollutes water to such extent that the flora and fauna within them often dies after consuming the Plaster of Paris of which the Ganesh idols are made. The time when the festival was started by Tilak did not have Ganesh pandals on every road of the city. Also, the idols weren’t as large as they are made in today’s world. Currently, however, the festival has no longer remained a festival but has become a competition among pandals as to who gets the maximum devotees and collection.

Okay, let us forget about the aftermath of the festival. But the way Mumbai celebrates it, is it ethical? Since my home falls on the main road from where Ganesh idols are taken for visarjan, it is obvious that there’s a lot of chaos on the visarjan days. With families and pandals dancing to the tunes of bands and DJs, it really becomes irritating for one to stay at home in such a situation. And, although rules have been made that pandals should not play loud music after 10pm, the chaos remains the same till at least 1am. Is this justified? Is that the time to play DJ and dance to music when it is time to sleep for the world? Shouldn’t people consider that others have to get up early and head out to work so it is unethical to disturb their sleep? And, forget about sleep, people don’t even consider that there might be old people or patients at people’s home whose sleep might get disturbed due to the loud noises! We all know old people cannot bear loud noises, don’t we?

While music is not enough for people to celebrate, I had people bursting crackers on the road at 12.15 pm on Wednesday when it was the day of visarjan for the 7-day Ganesh idols. Trust me, it was really disturbing and irritating to fall asleep to this noise when it was already midnight.

Apart from this, one of the most disgusting ways of visarjan that I saw on the same day was that a large Ganesh idol was placed on a bullock cart by a pandal which had set out for visarjan at 12am.  The very sight of it was disturbing; like why do we have to trouble the bullocks at midnight having them to pull a large Ganesh idol on their back? Is this act justified? Can’t people simply hire a truck or a tempo to ply the idols to the visarjan spots? Or simply drag the cart themselves? Of course, the large idols at pandals are extremely heavy; so imagine the plight of the bullocks that were dragging it with people dancing in front of them? Shall we call this humanity? And will the Lord himself like it?

Festivals, in today’s world, have become more of a business and their face has been transformed drastically over the years. While we celebrate to enjoy ourselves, we must not forget the basic ethics or enjoy at the cost of others’ peace and happiness. Agree? 

Are pilgrimage places still that divine as we treat them?

Before starting this blog, I would like to apologize to all of my regular and sincere readers (although there are a few) to not have been able to write since a very long time. The tiring work schedule, after all, often limits us from doing something that we surely want to do from our heart! But I am writing this blog today to discuss with all of my readers, a travel experience to one of the most holy places of Maharashtra and also in India, Shirdi.

Shirdi is a very renowned place of pilgrimage in Maharashtra that has the presence of the God Sai Baba. Every day and round the year, lakhs and crores of pilgrims visit this holy place to seek blessings from Sai Baba for their future, new business and jobs, and a lot more. Some also come to thank God for obtaining something that they truly desired for. So, I have been to this much beloved place of people and pilgrims recently this weekend. Although watching Sai Baba and seeking his blessings was an incredible experience, there are a few disgusting things about such pilgrimage and holy places that have often come into light over the rece
nt years but were ignored somewhere and somehow.

What is the idea of people behind visiting these holy places? Of course, it is to seek the blessings of God and obtain peace in a holy and sacred temple as beloved as that off Shirdi. But are these places still the same what we consider to be? I know it was weekend when I visited the temple and also that summer vacations are still going on so the place is bound to be crowded. And I do not have any problem with the large crowd. Of course, my entire family was prepared to stand in a long queue and wait for our turn to come! But what followed next, in the line, was truly an annoying experience! It is often observed that these large places of pilgrimage such as Shirdi and even the popular Lalbaughcha Raja in Mumbai during Ganesh festival are visited by a number of celebrities and VIPs. And whenever these so called VIP people come for darshan at these sacred places, politics happens! Yes! The management would put the line of common men on hold and make them strand for hours together without even explaining or announcing the reason for the delay caused. And the same thing happened with us that day! As we walked in the line, suddenly the line was stopped for a long duration of 45 minutes. For this entire 45 minutes period, the line did not move forward an inch and no one knew what was the reason for the delay. Also, when the management knows that there are about lakhs of people stranded in the queue, the arrangement of water was far from where we were and we could not leave our line because of the barrier gates.

Within 45 minutes, the line began moving but only for a good 10 minutes duration. Later it was stopped again since it was time for aarti and the aarti continued for nearly half an hour. After having done with this, when people were already frustrated and sweating like hell, panting and looking for water, the line was once again halted, this time too for no reason! And this again lasted for a good duration of 45-50 minutes. Some devotees also tried to ask the policemen present around to know the reason for the halting of the line but to no use. No one cared to announce the reason. And why would they? They very well know the love of people for God and that no matter how long you make them strand, they would still sta
nd with patience to visit and seek blessings of the beloved God! But is this what would give you peace and happiness? The real idea behind visiting these places is to get blessings from God, not to stand in a line for hours and that too for no reason! So helpless and idiotic we all felt about ourselves!

After some time, when the line continued and we finally reached the temple and saw God, everyone prayed from their heart right when they had just reached the entrance of the temple. As we were let go near the beautiful idol, it was not even a couple of seconds when we were literally pushed away and asked to leave by two women who were controlling the crowd in the temple. I mean, is this the way you ask someone to simply leave even without letting him stand in front of the idol for a single minute after having waited for the moment for hours together? I absolutely understand their concern too, if everyone is let to stand, there would be a large crowd in the temple and people wouldn't move! But then, there are some ethics on how you treat people! This has also been the case at Lalbaugcha Raha last year during Ganeshotsav when some of the volunteers of the mandal were arrested and detained for having misbehaved with devotees.

The problem with people is that they feel proud in standing in long queues to see their beloved God and the management takes advantage of this. It is my humble request to all the management teams of such holy and scared places: Please let people pray to God atleast for a couple of minutes and treat them like humans! After all, they wait for long hours for that moment! And do not let celebrities take blessings for more than 10 minutes; there are people waiting eagerly to sought blessings too and they might have already waited for long enough than you could imagine!