The God Of All Things

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”

So said Plato, the wise Greek. But we, we went one better and have a God devoted entirely to beginnings, so that all our work is carried out without unnecessary hitches, glitches and near misses!

He is totally suited to the new millennium. Besides being many-armed and kitted out with myriad weapons, he is multifaceted and a multi-tasker par excellence. Although beginnings are His forte`, He controls many other celestial departments. Obstacles need removing? He is right there in a jiffy. Need extra help in the knowledge department? ‘Fikar Not’, as they say. Need help in the arts? Got it! Need some stories to tell the kids about a little God who is kind and cuddly? Look no further. Your search ends with Him. You need it and He has it.

Such is Ganapati or Ganesh, a universally worshipped and beloved deity of the Hindu pantheon who also finds mention in some sects of Buddhism. Such is His reach, that He is worshipped in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Indonesia and has travelled as far afield as the Philippines. He is not just revered and respected, but also loved. You find him in the likeliest of places (no Hindu home is complete without His presence) and in the unlikeliest too (think vehicles, museums, notebooks of Indian students abroad, on bags, key rings and even on Indonesian currency).

Perhaps many people (especially Westerners) are befuddled if not downright alarmed at the sight of this divinity with the body of an overweight human and the head of an elephant, but it is His calm visage which brings comfort to many. He embodies the philosophy of the ‘Atma’ or soul of all creatures being one, being universal. He is the combination of opposites, a divine example of the concept of duality. He is proof that opposites can, not only attract and coexist peacefully, but meld together beautifully to create something larger and better, a whole definitely more than the sum of its parts. His lore teaches that life is what we make of it, irrespective of looks and what we do or do not possess. His message is that there is always a new beginning, a new dawn after every darkest hour.

It is no coincidence therefore, that when the crescendo of the raging monsoons is waning to gentle showers, when there is the happy anticipation of the bounty of nature in the form of the harvest, one of the calmest of all the gods presides over a colourful, charming and wonderfully chaotic festival held in His honour, chiefly in the south- western states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa. His much- heralded arrival is one of the most highly anticipated events of the Hindu festival calendar and preparations begin months in advance. Idol makers, especially the more sought after and reputed ones begin their work well in advance, so that no one returns disappointed that his Ganesh idol was not ‘just so’.

This festival has an interesting feature. It is celebrated both publicly in the form of ‘community pandals’ which can be as small as the tiny ones in the lobby of a housing society to some large ones which have gained name and fame all over India, the ‘Lalbaugh cha Raja’ in Mumbai being a prime example and privately with many homes and families hosting their own Ganesh. But, where ever He resides, His status is irrevocably that of a favourite and much anticipated guest. His advent is a blessing, an honour He bestows on those whom He favours. While most families host Him for anywhere between one-and- a-half to ten days, ranging through five and seven days, it is His arrival rather than the duration of His stay which is of the essence.

I have fond childhood memories about this festival, the excitement if setting up a special ‘Makhar’ or pandal and decorating it with bunting and strings of fairy lights of all kinds, interspersed with seasonal fruits and berries, without which the decorations were deemed incomplete. It was an age of innocence. Yes, we used Gasp! Plastic in our decorations, but we laid them away carefully after the festival to be reused next year. No one had heard or cared about Greta or Greenpeace. It was just the glory of Ganapati. And yes, we were greener because we reused everything, from the pandal to the decorations and even the bits of string used to hang them up!

Fresh flowers, a special kind of grass called ‘Durva’ and five types of leaves, called ‘Patri’ formed an essential of the pooja and most households summarily dispatched youngsters to procure the same, which meant official time to frolic in all the gardens and most of the meadows in the neighbourhood. Yes, we were lucky that ‘urbanization’ with its manicured lawns and curated gardens had not made as big a headway and most gardens did not even boast respectable fences, much less paths. We filled our baskets with glee in addition to the necessary flowers and leaves, scrapes, pricks by thorns and insect bites notwithstanding.

 You will rarely find a God as devoted to the finer things of life as Ganpati. A complete foodie! What could be more delightful? Other than the special ‘Modaks’, ‘Idlis’, ‘Kapa or Fodi of Fagala (spiny gourd)’ and a delicious mixed vegetable stew called ‘Khatkahte’ all prepared in His honour and for us to gorge on unabashedly! Combine this with the evening ‘Arati’ and you had another heap of delicacies, all vying for special spots, ‘Rava Ladoos’, special banana ‘Halwa’, mithai of all kinds, topped off with a large handful of puffed rice or ‘Kurmure’ mixed with dainty slivers of fresh coconut. Provided you were not tasked with producing the said stuff, you could easily take to imitating His body type after a few days of hearty feasting.

The evening Arati was an event in a class by itself, with several voices singing His praises in perfectly discordant harmony, some mumbling, others stumbling (many memories gave up the ghost because these prayers were not sung as chorus for the rest of the year) and yet others simply lending a tone by much enthusiastic rhythmic clapping, while stubbornly refusing to open their mouths. Of course, back in the day, the door to the massive halls of the even more massive ancestral house were kept open all day and screen doors were not dreamt of. The recently concluded rains meant verdant shelter for swarms of mosquitoes and the singing on occasion was accompanied by shuffling or hopping from foot to foot which could easily be mistaken for ritual dancing!

And then there was the excitement of the fireworks which were a major part of the festival. Before Priyanka Chopra or Sonam Kapoor or their dogs require hospitalization for an exacerbation of asthma or acute deafness, let me clarify that all the kids pooled their fireworks and carefully divided them into small lots to be lit on as many days of the festival as possible and then again, for only about half an hour or so. Since restraint and conservative traits came to us naturally and on all days of the year, we refused to be hobbled by artificial ones, just the way we refused to run amok on New Year’s Eve with the fire work displays.

It was with heavy hearts that we bid adieu to our Godly guest, with many actually sobbing unabashedly at the thought of having to wait for a whole year for Him to return. We meant it when we said “Pudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya (Return earlier next year)”, because the house felt that much emptier and drearier after He departed, lovingly deposited into the nearest waterbody, which in our case happened to be the well. Before you come up with a gasp of horror and say “Oh, but haven’t you heard of water pollution?”, let me assure you, most houses boasted wells in the backyard and held private immersion ceremonies. Nothing was exaggerated, neither the number of pandals in a given town or city, nor the size of the idols. This was the age before Netflix and Disney Hot Star, you see. OTT had not been heard of, much less seen. Everything was as it was meant to be. A beloved God, his devout followers and a few days of festivity which purified both the body and the mind.

The times may have changed, families may have moved away and modernity may have crept in everywhere. But Ganapati has adapted too. He is happy whether He is made of chocolate and immersed in milk to be distributed as prasad, He is happy in a green pandal of banana leaves, He is happy to be a metal idol which can be reused the following year and He is happy to share selfie space with his devotees. He is always ready to begin a wise new trend, for He is the God of beginnings after all. His message is eternal: You can always begin anew and find wisdom in whatever you do!

Even as my family and I celebrate a centenary of this beloved festival this year and whoop “Ganpati Bappa Morya”, we know that He is our God of all things not just for a hundred years, but for millenia!