September Festivals

This past weekend was an incredible time here in Mumbai as the three major religions celebrated with big festivals.

1) Eid: Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan and breaking their final fast with fireworks, goat slaughtering, and huge parties. The big excitement is the food at sunset, but since most of it is street food, we didn't partake -- maybe next year when our tummies have adjusted better.

2) Ganesha: Hindus celebrating the beloved elephant God who is known as the remover of obstacles. Traditionally, each family orders and blesses their own Ganesha (ranging from 1-2 feet tall, to 15-20), eventually ending in a procession at the end of the week down to the ocean to have it submerged. This tradition has expanded greatly in the past few decades so that companies and housing associations have gotten in on the fun. Downtown, there are now contests for the tallest and most colorfully decorated Ganesha. Many have expanded to not just statues of the jolly God, but also telling some of the mythology behind him. Up in our suburb of Bandra, the impromptu Ganesha temples are small and quaint. The ones downtown look like they have been inspired by the Rose Parade.

3) Mary Festival: Catholics celebrating the birth of Mary while simultaneously remembering the miracle on Mount Mary (a hill here in our neighborhood), where someone had a body part cured by an appearance of Mary. If you have any part of your body ailing you, you can buy a small wax replica of it (there are countless stalls along the hill to the church) and leave it as an offering at the church so you will be healed. It is quite the experience to walk for a few blocks where everyone is selling wax arms, legs, spines, breasts, full bodies, and even things like your motorcycle or house (not sure how that fits into the miracle). On your way out of the church is another few blocks of stalls selling Indian sweets, cheap clothes and crafts, and there are even portable kiddie rides like a mini ferris wheel they have at the MN State Fair (though, I'm not even that comfortable with the ones in MN, let alone here in India).

It may be cliche to say, but it is worth pointing out a few items of note. One very interesting and exciting observation was that people from all faiths participate in and celebrate with each other. This point is particularly salient to us because of the controversy in the U.S. regarding the painfully intolerant pastor in Florida. By no means has Mumbai (or India for that matter) figured out what it means to be religiously tolerant, what we witnessed this weekend was a powerful image.

To close with a final story: on Friday evening we celebrated the end of our work at the apartment of one of our administrators. They have a nice balcony overlooking the neighborhood. At sundown we saw fireworks begin and go throughout the next couple hours, erupting from all different parts of the neighborhood. The best part was, you couldn't tell which festival was being celebrated -- all three were going on simultaneously. The icing on the religious cake came later as the cacophony of explosions were accompanied by a church choir.

So happy festivals to all!