Last night was the final night of celebration for the Ganesh festival. The weather has been comparatively beautiful for the last week or so (by that I mean we have seen the sun on occasion) but yesterday it just rained all day long. It let up for brief moments but it also poured at other times making for a rather soggy affair. This, however, didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Ganesh Chaturthi is an 11 day festival celebrating the Hindu deity Ganesha, who is recognizable for his elephant head with one tusk. There are many different accounts as to how he ended up with the head of an elephant, and also how he lost his tusk. One of my favorites recounts how Ganesha was favoured as a scribe and he made a commitment to write until the end, and as he wrote and wrote and wrote his writing implement finally broke so he grabbed his tusk so that he could continue and would be true to his word. (I think there is perhaps supposed be a takeaway lesson for me???) Another aspect of this festival which I find intriguing is that the modern origins of the Ganesh festival, at least in the state of Maharastra where Mumbai is located, are not so much religious as they are nationalistic. Ganesha, with his widespread appeal to the masses, was used in the late 1800s by the infant nationalist movement to bring people together, regardless of their caste, and allowed them promote unity and to speak about freedom and independence under the guise of a religious festival. At the time social and political gatherings were banned by the British, but the colonial administration was nervous about impinging on religious freedoms and actually worked to help facilitate events in Mumbai.

Given the inclement weather, one of the lucky diplomatic perks is that we were invited to view the final day’s immersion (visarjan) ceremony from the VIP stand, with other diplomats, local government officials, and even a visiting Canadian parliamentary delegation. And the arrival of each dignitary was announced in style by an elegant attendant with a Kombu. (I so want to get one of these horns…what better way to wake the kids up in the morning?)

Over the 11 day festival some 50,000 Ganesh statues have been immersed in various locations around Mumbai, with just over 11,000 scheduled to be immersed at Girgaon Chowpatty where we were watching. Attendance at the beach last year was just about 2,000,000 (no that was not a typo) and while the weather may have kept the numbers down, a conservative estimate would be the entire population of the Edmonton Capital Region (1.1 million) on the beach throughout the evening.

People would bring their statues, some big, some small, and as they passed the viewing stand we were encouraged to throw flower petals as they filtered by.

These statues which are crafted with such care (and huge expense) were then led past the reviewing stand and were ushered into the Arabian Sea where they rest out of site (until at least the tide goes out).