Ganesh Festival & the Spirit of Mumbai.

 Ganesh Festival & the Spirit of Mumbai.

The 10 day Ganesh festival - a cultural, religio-spiritual  tradition, celebrated with great fervour across Mumbai and Maharashtra, the tradition of which has spread  to most other parts of India, began today amidst the Covid 19 pandemic with an attenuated response and a Covid cover.  But the spirit of the people celebrating this holy festival remains that quintessentially Mumbaikars spirit. 

The Ganesh festival, the genesis of which dates back to atleast 16th century and suggests that the Ganesh Chaturthi was mostly observed in the aristocratic individual households of the Pehwas - the Prime Ministers in the Maratha regime. This  festival tradition over the years has evolved into a social, cultural and political hallmark of Mumbai in particular and Maharashtra in general and so also across other parts of India. This holy tradition of the celebration of the Ganesh Festival in the royal households of the Marathas, which was revered by the people, was effectively used to kindle the spirit of the freedom movement by one of great leaders of the Indian fredom movement - Bal Gangadhar Tilak. 

In 1892, Bal Gangadhar Tilak decided to  bring Lord Ganesha out of individual homes and onto the public space to channelise and unite the larger national sentiment against the oppressive British rule. This was a momentous decision, which helped in accentuating the freedom movement by creating a sense of cultural unity among the masses. The British were successfully managing to crush the freedom movement, particularly gathering of large number of people on to the streets, with that inhuman and barbaric force. Tilak realised that no amount of barbaric force will be able to supress the spritual belonging and oneness of the people of India and therefore he decided to use the auspicious occasion of the Ganesh Chaturthi  to assemble large number of people together for collectively celebrating this festival.  The festival provided that much needed impetus for the freedom struggle and ever since the Ganesh Festival has come on to the public space in Mumbai and Maharashtra and has also spread across different cities in India. The Covid pandemic has however attenuated the celebrations this year but definitely not the spirit of the people. 

The first Public  Ganesh mandal - Keshavji Naik Chawl Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandal at Girgaum - was commissioned in 1893 and ever since it has been celebrating this auspicious Ganesh festival in the same traditional form each year. Lord Ganesh  — a small idol - is consecrated  with no loudspeakers or expensive lights, or any of the modern day style pooja traditions in Girgaum for over a century now.  However there are other public Ganesh Pandals, across the city including the famous Lalbaug ka Raja,  which celebrate Ganesh Pooja and the festival with modern day fanfare with DJs and lights and sound and crackers and what have you.

Whether a sombre pooja or an ostentatious collective celebration, one thing remains central to this holy festival, which every Mumbaikar and Maharashtrians celebrate -  the festival is celebrated with Shradha and Bhakti, which in essence is the very spirit of India - the socio, cultural and spiritual land that is home to most religions of the world. The administration and all other stakeholders, including the public, who ensure that this extraordinary 10 days Ganesh Festival passes of peacefully with the immersions of the Ganesh murthi and the festival becomes a grand success time after time and festival after festival, must be saluted for their efforts. 

Another primary reason for the success of this auspicious Ganesh Festival in Mumbaj are the Mumbaikars - the rich and mighty, the powerful and powerless, the poor and the insignificant, the lettered and unlettered, sheltered and unsheltered, the males, females and the transgender’s, the believers and non believers, Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, the religious and non religious, young, middle aged, old and the very old. That undying spirit of unity in diversity in India gets exemplarily played during this festival in Mumbai, which is cherished not just in Mumbai but across the country and globally. 

May Ganapati Bappa bless us all and may he guide  us to tide over the current pandemic and its aftermath.

Ganapati Bappa Morya.