Festive season is here… Ganeshotsav… the biggest festival of Maharashtra and ofcourse Mumbai… and am blessed to be staying in the most divine area of Lalbaug (the famous lalbaug cha Raja!!) where this is not a festival but a ritual… a tradition… a ceremonial way of life…
Experienced this unusual way of life while having a stroll on the streets of Lalbaug… an amazingly upbeat and colorful mood with hoards of people on streets… streets lined with decorated shops… selling sweets, fruits, flowers, garlands, decorative articles, gifts, toys, clothes, pooja items, masks and much much more… the aroma of dhoop and agarbattis and flowers only added an earthly touch to the festivities… with this blended the devotional songs playing in all shops… and the uproar of ‘Ganapati Bappa Moraya” from processions (it was time to take Ganesh idols home)…
Have seen melas in small towns… multi-hued, rich, lively… theres a similar essence and feeling here on the streets of Mumbai… We have been used to going to malls and super markets… at the most exhibitions… but the fervor here on streets of lalbaug is very different than that in airconditioned malls, markets and exhibitions… there everything is defined and controlled, from temperature to noise levels to layouts… it’s a ‘structured commotion’…
while here on the streets it’s amorphous… free to take its form… and the form I am seeing is very appealing and invigorating… I had forgotten that these kind of festivities exist and now that I am experiencing them, am absorbing every bit of them… dissolving myself in the earthly colors and their inherent disorder…