The Ganpati festivities ended in the city with the final immersion on Wednesday, followed by late-late night thunderclaps and bolts of lightning — the kind, which haven’t been experienced for years.
And this year, from what I could perceive, the festival was celebrated with extra-abundant zest, some of the new trends being the guest appearances of A-lister movie stars. Reports claimed that some of them were paid in crores to add that dash of entertainment and quite marvellously, the sidebar element of secularism, what with Shah Rukh Khan being the most-wanted attendee following the super success of Chennai Express.
The preferred moves of the season were the SRK lungi dance, something which I would be petrified to attempt. Word is that an about-to-retire top cop didn’t have any qualms about freaking out in that style on the dance floor though, shocking the gathering of the senior police force. Come on, surely the man was entitled to let his hair down.
Of course, dance-friendly music was a must all over the city, blared from mega-tonnes of speakers. The departure of Ganpati for immersion at the Girgaum Chowpatty, from a Napean Sea Road neighbourhood, was held up for hours and hours, because a set of speakers packed up.
Once the speakers came to life, after much tinkering, the neighbourhood resounded with applause, and the procession made it to the seafront well in time, despite the throngs, which had blocked the movement of cars and buses in the SoBo stretches. Before noon, however, the roads had been a desertscape, facilitating a drive from midtown to Bandra in an incredible 15 minutes.
And for once, I must give credit where it’s due actually. The traffic police squad, aided by good Samaritan voluteers, which regulated emergency services as well as crowd-control, was exemplary.
And it was heartening to spot some posts on social networking sites, accompanied by the famous Lord Ganesha sketches and portraits by the late M.F. Husain. A story goes that a New Delhi businessman went flat broke when he sold off a Ganpati
painting by the artist, who immediately gifted him another one. Fortunes once again smiled wide upon the businessman. That may be an apocryphal story, and an irrational one too, but explains why Husain’s Ganpati paintings and sketches went on to become one of his most popular series of all time.