The City of Floating Elephants

Just as the monsoon finally ended, Mumbai had two weeks of combined festivities between the Muslims (Ramadan, a month of fasting, ended with the feasts of Eid ul-Fitr), the Christians (the birthday of Virgin Mary) and the Hindus (Ganpati or Ganesh Chaturthi, the birthday of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, the patron deity of the city and the god of prosperity, good fortune and new beginnings).

We were most directly affected by the Christian holiday, since we live in a historic Portuguese Catholic neighborhood, Mount Mary, and usually wake up to church singing from the leafy Christian retreat cross the street. How we missed that quiet droning: for a week, our hill became the site of worship, fairgrounds, and plain old trinket (and unfortunately, vuvuzela) selling accompanied by the salespeople's plaintive cries.

The Catholic worship here is its own beast, as you can see in these pictures of a statue of Jesus festooned with a garland of marigolds--the traditional flower used for Indian temple decoration--and, most curiously, the sale of wax candles resembling the body part you want to heal or any other things in your life that you want to go better (seen here: dogs for canine health, houses, hotels).

Yet Ganpati wins hands down both for exuberance and sheer weirdness (a British comedian we went to hear quipped: "It's hot and there are pink elephants everywhere. I must be tripping.") For eleven days, the city was filled with both big and small processions--families and entire communities--lovingly carrying their painted and decorated clay Ganesh statues that they had been keeping and preparing at home all year. Behind the open truck where the god was enthroned would be a whole line of people dancing to stereo music.

The ultimate aim of the Ganesh processions would be to carry the god to the water to cries translating as "O Lord Ganesh, come again speedily next year" (plus deafening firecrackers and more celebration) whence, after a prayer, he would be allowed to float away.

While this happened roughly every three nights, the last day was the biggest celebration, with Ganeshes as tall as five meters being let out to swim.

Unlike the earlier Krishna holiday, this is very much a family celebration and--according to Misha's Australian/Indian colleague--the only time when the lower classes can reclaim the city, barefoot, dancing and holding up traffic.

For me, the most surprising thing, as at any festivals I've seen here, was the sheer exuberance of the crowds and their stamina--dancing the night away for a week and a half--and the surreal sight of pink elephants bobbing up and down in the ocean.