Nerve Endings Firing Away

No matter how far we find ourselves from home or the many festivals we have missed over the years we have spent in US, the desi student community tries hard to recreate the same magic. Ganesh Chaturthi can be said to be the most widely celebrated; no firecrackers for Diwali or no colors for Holi does not really let us enjoy the festivals. Although technically I am no longer a student, I still get invited to noisy student parties and gatherings. The Ganesh Puja celebrations on Saturday was equally rambunctious with more than 40 people crammed in one tiny apartment, screaming and clapping their hearts out in loud devotion. Although the pujas do not follow the rigors of a ritualistic tradition, the enthusiasm makes up for it. Everyone considers it cool to add their own family prayers to the never-ending aarti and our hands are already sore red from clapping away to glory. Three kinds of prasad are distributed and are almost enough to qualify as dinner.

After all the perfunctory greetings with old acquaintances, we head home to our own Ganpati puja at home, which is the veritable opposite of what we have just seen. We have managed to keep an idol at home second year in a row trying to do the bare minimum to connect to our Hindu roots. Although we do nothing on the scale of what my parents do in India. The idol itself is masked as a clay idol with a Plaster-of-Paris interior. Although priced exorbitantly, it really doesn’t appear as gracefully sculpted as idols in Bombay. But that is the cost we pay for living in a society full of mass-produced goods. Although the guy at the store claims that it is made in India, I think it just might be an import from China. We had a tough time immersing the idol last year stealthily in the nearby PF Chang Restaurant’s lake but this year is not going to be any different. I am trying to look for a viable alternative to avoid doing such grave harm to the local ecosystem, someone with a grasp on rituals and science help me out here. I managed to dig up a toran (ceremonial garland, usually hung on doors) that I had once brought from India. We picked out a red Tantra T-shirt of an out-of-town roomie from his closet and put it up as the backdrop with pins and clamps. The poor guy couldn’t say much after he returned because it was used for a “holy cause”. A basket of fruits, couple of agarbattis, a tiny bell, and the mandatory haldi-kunku (turmeric-vermillion); we were ready to rock and do some serious ganesh worship.

But unfortunately no one really has the aarti by-heart so we resort to playing it in MP3 format on the laptop. I make sheera — a sweet prepared from rava on the first day but due to lack of further culinary talent, we resort to keeping doughnuts and ice-cream as prasad. I almost missed mentioning Hershey’s kisses as modaks and Gatorade as teertha. Ganpati doesn’t seem to mind or rather we like to think so. If he does, we are royally screwed; as if I need any more reasons to anger the gods. For a carnivore like me, it is difficult staying away from non-vegetarian food for mere five days that Ganpati will reside at our place. After that, it is back to our sinful lives. All said and done, Ganpati Bappa; .Morya.