Ganpati
Today was the final day of Ganpati, a ten-day festival in honor of Ganpati, or Ganesh, or Gajhanan, or Vinayak, or Vakratunda, or Ekdant, or Krushnapingaksha, or Gajavastra, or Lambodar, or Vighnarajendra, or Dhumravarna, or Bhalchandra (this elephant-headed Hindu God has at least 12 names, so I am told). Thousands of men, many of them drunk, took to the streets to dance and drum along with their giant statue of Ganpati, which was making its way from the Ganesh temple to the river, five kilometers away. All of these statues were then thrown into the river. The men threw colored powder over themselves and everyone, the onlookers as well, had a grand time. The police had to tell us to go inside a friend’s house for a little while at one point because everyone had stopped to stare at the Americans, and were blocking traffic. Before the craziness started the women gathered in the Ganesh temple to pray.
