Footprints on the Mountainside

Its Ganesh Chaturthi time. This is big happenings near Mumbai and Pune. Everybody and his cousin will install a Ganesh idol in their home on Ganesh Chaturthi and keep it in their homes for worship for durations varying from a day and a half to 21 days. At the end of whatever duration has been selected, the idols are immersed into the sea/river/other water bodies.

It is a time of great worship and cultural value. Hindus believe it to be an honour (to themselves?) to host the God in their home. Even if you don’t follow this practice, you can’t remain unaffected. You will be invited to go and pay your respects in the homes of those you know. A time of meeting people and great joy.

However, there is the dark side of the Ganpati celebrations. The dark side is the utter litter of broken, half dissolved idols marring beaches and shores of all water bodies after these celebrations are done. There is a great pride in creating huge idols, which are invariably of plaster of paris or fibreglass as opposed to the traditional clay idols, which don’t even dissolve away, like they are supposed to.

This Ganesh Chaturthi, I’d like my readers to take the initiative in spreading the word about the damage done to our natural resources through this practice. It is also completely disrespectful to the God you love for so many days in your home to be lying around like garbage once you’re done with your worship.

I have several suggestions I would like to make to Hindus who follow this practice, and I hope they realize that Hinduism is an evolving religion, and knowledge and understanding shaping practices is highly respected, and make an attempt to shift some of the practices to make our environment better. These are inspired by today’s visits to people we respect highly, and you will see why.

This is an idol in the home of Mr Mahesh Atale - an outstanding mallakhamb coach (he was my husband’s coach, when Raka used to perform mallakhamb) and a man with a social conscience. This idol is made of paper mache and painted with eco-friendly paint. When immersed in water, it will dissolve completely within a day - normally, within 8-10 hours. Still, he immerses it in a bucket of water at home.

Another friend and old time guide/teacher is Dr. Milind Chitley. A doctor who is also a mountaineer and Raka’s first employer in the outdoors. Raka worked with him for 8 years and learnt much of what he knows about operating programmes from him. Dokya, as he is fondly called, was not at home, but his parents were, and we had come to pay our respects to the decorated big boss anyway, and he was there.

Dockya has an idol made of silver. It is also immersed in a bucket of water and used again next year. Of course, it doesn’t dissolve, but that is obviously not what we want with a silver idol

A friend of ours, Nikhil Mhapankar, was among those we couldn’t visit due to a shortage of time. He is planning an idol of “panch dhatu”, which is five metals - gold, silver, copper, tin and lead. He is planning to recycle some ancestral silver and gold for this to add sentimental value.

This is an idol in the home of Mr Shrikant Warkhedi - the son of respected sculptor Gururaj Warkhedi and my husband’s maternal uncle. Shrikant mama doesn’t do much sculpting, but makes the Ganesha idol himself without fail each year, like his father used to. This idol is created and used for worship while it is wet. No paints of any kind are used at all, and it is immersed in a bucket of water at home at the end of celebrations and the clay is reused for the next year’s idol.

There are other things people do as well. A chawl in the town area uses an intricate water colour painting on a wall, which is simply washed away. Other practices include reusing fiberglass idols after repainting them, keeping a stone shaped in a way the worshiper finds symbolic of lord Ganesha, and drawing the shape with grain, which is later donated.

Whatever the method, it is different, expressive of caring for the environment and love for the God. I request all readers to promote such ideas among everyone they can. Each year, we have lakhs of idols littering water bodies and devastating the ecology with lead paint and plaster of paris. Every person we can convert toward the protection of God’s creation while engaged in worship is one idol less lying demeaningly on the shore.

I particularly request large public celebrations to adopt eco-friendly practices and become role models for upcoming celebrations. Do it for God’s sake, or environment’s sake, but do it.

This post will be split into two, as there is plenty of content. I’ll focus this on the travel and the people and the next can be about the religious experience.

Getting from Sangli to Kule Narshingpur is a pain. First, there is a state transport bus journey to Islampur, which takes about an hour, and then there is the further journey by bus/rickshaw to Kule Narchingpur, which takes another half-an-hour.

We were lucky to find a luxury bus waiting as we reached the bus station at Sangli, and the journey to Islampur was comfortable and quick. Not much to do, except watch the kilometers tick by, and the wierd little conductor interact with the people on the bus in his singsong voice.

This region is all about sugarcane production, and we passed fields with sugarcane standing, or in various stages of being harvested, sugarcane loaded on tractors, bullockcarts, being stored….. whatever - sugarcane - and loads of it.

In Islampur, we gave up trying to figure out further state transport and simply hired a rickshaw to take us to our destination. The road was now bumpy. I guess the parents in law were not exactly comfortable. Raka was sitting on half the driver’s seat in the front, as these rickshaws are designed to seat only three, so I guess he wasn’t too comfortable either, but I was enjoying the ride through the countryside.

Narrow bumpy roads, blocked with bullock cart traffic - pretty heavy - we seemed to be waiting more than moving. Charming glimpses of the river, and all kinds of people chattering with our rickshaw man as we passed them. Very charmingly rural, if you overlook the not-so-charming ruts on the road.

Bullocks and goats seemed to be all over the place. Parked in front of homes having lunch, yoked, pulling carts, being loaded, unloaded…… I’ve never seen so many bullocks in one day.

We reached the home of the pujaris at our destination. Actually, the pujari on duty was someone else, but my parents in law had good relations with another, who wasn’t on duty, but we stayed with them anyway. I was surprised to find a Marathi family - I was expecting Kannada Brahmins (my in-laws are Kannada) like in Sangli. Apparently there are historical migrations and stuff involved and the seeming discrepancy was a normal state of affairs in such issues.

At least I could understand what was being said. I found myself feeling at home. The family were really charming people, complete with a really charming old widow grandmother - a typical joint family.

We visited the temple in the evening, and I have never seen such a charming location in this region (plenty in the Himalaya). What can I say, I’ll let the pics do the talking.

We left Mumbai by train and travelled overnight to reach Sangli. Uneventful, except for a hugely pregnant and very charming lady and husband occupying the remaining two berths in our “room”. We reached Sangli early in the morning and headed to the home of the priest in the temple we were visiting. We got refreshed (bath and silk clothes, etc) and went to the temple.

The temple is at a charming location on the banks of the river, that looks pretty nice, but smells something awful. The priests actually bathe in it as a part of their ritual cleansing - a thought enough to give me the jitters - it is probably cleaner not to bathe. Anyway, we bathed in a bathroom, so life was good.

Leaving the parents with their God, Raka and I skipped off for a quick tea and food break and discovered a restaurant called Swagat (meaning “welcome”) which was amazing for incredibly delicious food, and the lowest bill (Rs.54/- that’s less than a dollar and a half) for two people I have ever encountered for stuffing myself till I had vadas coming out of my ears. Overall, pretty good.

Floating along in the bliss of a stomach full of extremely desirable food, Raka and I returned to the temple to find that the puja was already over. That is really quick and efficient for these temples. We did the obligatory bowing and donations etc and it was time for lunch! I could swear that I couldn’t eat a bite, after what we were just returning from.

Fortunately, lunch at the pujari’s home involved a significant delay as it was prepared. Then it was time to give a “supache vaan” which is something I cannot describe. Suffice it to say that it is a collection of assorted items related with a female’s fortune in Hinduism, that we gave to the pujari’s wife. What I remember is a sari, comb, coconut, betel nut, betel leaves, kaja, rice, dal, jaggery, salt, some money, mirror, etc. Then it was Raka’s turn to give a dhoti and stuff to the pujari, and we were “clear”. Time to eat.

Food was good, except that there was a massive quantity of rice to consume with assorted dals and vegetables followed by sweet rice, spiced rice and finally curd and rice. I’d had enough ric for a lifetime by the time I was done with that meal.

After this meal, the only thing possible was sleep and all the four of us crashed for a nap in unworded agreemment.

My parents in law are staunch theists. They believe in the multitude of Hindu Gods and the places they need to travel in order to obtain their blessings. One such location is this trip, which is actually three locations. These are the family Gods of our clan. No matter where we go, these guys are supposed to have their benevolent eye on us.

Apparently, my father in law had ignored the Gods for many years, as had his parents, and bad times came on the family, when my husband was young. Then some astrologer told them that their fortune will change if they go and meet their roots - the Gods who look after their clan. Full of suitable repentance, and reverence, they did so, and claim their luck has changed ever since. Health, happiness and money flowed.

I am skeptical. Where is this flowing health when my mother-in-law needs to take some 12 pills at one time 2-3 times a day? Diabetes, blood pressure, …. Their explanation is it could be worse. It is a matter of their previous actions that is causing them to come to these experiences now. Heh. It could be worse whether you believe in God or not.

But regardless of their beliefs and ours, I really respect them for not forcing us to conform. Except for this one thing. It is quite common in India. Newly married couples go to the temples in their villages to pray within a year of the wedding and ideally, immediately after. In our case, this didn’t happen. We managed to keep avoiding this tour because we were busy or something or the other. But whoever has lived in India, with Indian parents know, that once the mother decides on something, obedience is inevitable. It is simply a matter of time

Raka and I don’t believe this nonsense. We are both atheists. But we do love our parents, and you know how it is in India…… if your parents insist long enough, obedience is inevitable. We tried all the excuses and explanations we could. We didn’t believe, if God is everywhere, what is the need to go to a specific place…. and so on. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with our debating abilities. The parents believe that it is our divine duty and it must be done - never mind that we don’t believe - do the actions.

Whatever. We like the region and are ok with travelling there, but so many temples…..? I guess resistance is futile

So here we are. Leaving for Sangli tonight. By morning we will reach there. Then it will be a merry go round of temples and offerings. We will be supposed to show our gratitude to the powers that be for giving us good lives and asking for good lives

This promises to be very different. Stay tuned. I’m going to be back on the 9th and will be writing about this trip.

I was sitting at my computer, working on a couple of programmes coming up, when I got a call from my husband, Raka. Picked it up to find him a bit on the worried side. He told me that there had been blasts in trains in Mumbai and he didn’t know much, but asked me to tell my mother-in-law not to go to Virar, as she had planned that day.

I put the phone down, and conveyed the message to her, idly surfing Google news for more information. The time of the blasts stopped me cold - my brother-in-law had left for the railway station perfectly in time to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. Worried, I dialled his number. The lines were jammed. My worry mounting, I kept it on auto-redial and it was almost an hour before I got through to him.

He was safe! He had been there when the blast happened, but he was on Platform 1 and the blast happened on platform 5. He returned home pretty shaken up. He had rushed to help what he could, in bringing out people from the compartment. He helped carry around 8-10 people, not knowing if they were unconscious or dead. Some were obviously dead. People walked around in a daze looking for help, wounded, confused and panicking. A lot of the crowd ran out of the station.

It was over 20 minutes before any help arrived. News channels arrived almost at the same time, speaking of the blast and asking the survivors questions and one of them almost got beaten up for asking the obvious, when he probably knew more than anyone else by now. “If you can’t help because you’re busy talking, then at least don’t interrupt us from seeing where we can be of help”. Everyone had their own priorities, a lot of questions, shock and were on edge I guess.

Meanwhile, at home, the full horror was becoming apparent as the numbers of the blasts grew from one or two to a mind-boggling seven blasts within a span of 11min. The trains are the life-line of Mumbai, and the crowd in the rush hour is only to be seen to be believed. Further statistics came up. The blasts had all been in first class compartments on trains on the fast track.

The blame game started. Everyone who could possibly be related with the blasts was in the suspects list for the police, while the civilians were deciding from emotion.

We came to know that an eighth bomb had been found and defused about the same time as hospitals put up lists of the victims that were under treatment with them. People frantically called up to know if others they knew were safe, while more people lined up at the hospitals to donate blood in this time of need.

The roads were jammed with traffic, with people offering rides to strangers, even trucks and other transport vehicles pitching in to help people get home - it is no small matter for the bulk of the train commuters to land up on the streets for transport. Meanwhile, residents of the areas near the main roads had taken to the streets offering food and water to the weary crowds trying to get home.

In a couple of hours, the trains were running slowly again (after extensive checking). The railway lines were repaired overnight and the damaged compartments carted off into a yard for further investigations. On the next day, schools were on, people were back to work, and the trains were running only a little behind schedule.

Long live the spirit of Mumbai. We got back on track as a city faster than it must have taken the terrorists to hurt us.

At a time like this, one looks at the people whose lives were damaged in this happening and wonder about what these messengers of terror want. Are they so insane to risk their lives and the comfort and honour of their loved ones (if they got caught) for a disruption that the mighty spirit of Mumbai stumbled over, but didn’t even stop for? Hurt a random bunch of people they didn’t know? Just because they could?

I refuse to believe that these chaps never themselves benifitted from the safe and fast convenience of the trains that are constantly there for every one regardless of caste, creed, religion, or even profession (I terrorism would be a profession for some)

I think that we all have only one life and no spares to count on. It is up to us if we choose to make it worthwhile, or harm victims and loved ones alike with the consequences of our actions.