Ganesh Chaturthi @ Hyd

Hyderabad and Mumbai are two cities in India that I know of, which celebrate Ganesh Pooja, in its full fury.
This is my second consecutive Ganesh Chaturthi @ Hyd. Its fun to watch Ganesh idols of all sizes, made by people from all sects, bought by people from all economic strata. The fun and frolic involved, brings together, the true Hyderabadi spirit in the crowd.

Its been my "good fortune" that my adobe has always been very close to a temple. I have moved through two houses during my short stint in Hyderabad, and each one has an open ground beside it, where people can congregate together and celebrate, and most importantly, fix up huge speaker sets n very good flash lights. It happens that the loud music, hungama, dance, drums go on far beyond the 6 AM-11PM restrictions. This year, I was happy to see 2-3 police men accompany each procession. These men were trying to let vehicles pass, without having to wait for more than 2 minutes, they tried to prevent drunk devotees from causing a havoc in the road. They tried to push the procession off residencial areas as the clock was crossing the 11PM deadline.

My appreciation to the men in uniform. I'm sure they would be wondering, if this kind of policing is what they were trained for, but never mind, in India, policing can be in all forms.... moral, physical, mental or ..... religious !!!

I was impressed with the policemen this year, may be coz' I live in the center of the city, pretty close to the Raj Bhawan and the chief ministers residence. Ironically, last year same time, my room mates and I had a tough time sleeping in the nights. Our building overlooked a ground, where these processions would go on late into the night. It was a nightmare to walk back home, alone on these days. Under the pretext of being devotees, young men, drunk ( enough to lose their concentration to pray for sure!!! ) would roam about, recklessly on the road. Bright lights, loud cacophony (I am a staunch Hindu, but I guess music of this sort, which disturbs the crowd- cannot be called anything better), we had a heluva time trying to control out temper, n get ourselves to sleep. At the end of the 11th day, when I was waiting for the group to take the idol to Hussain Sagar for immersion (its a sight to see the "clean, hygienic" Hussai Sagar- for the next one week, after the immersions!!!), my room mate reminded me that Durga pooja was on its way, and in wouldn't be long before the cycle starts again....!!!

Phew!!! Can't we pray, n have fun, in a little more civilized fashion.... Me a Hindu can write this, without causing a riot, I wonder if a non Hindu could write this in our "secular" land without causing a huge uproar!!!!