Bidding adieu with chants, dance, colour… but no din

Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai this year was, in that sense, a low-key affair.

The celebrations, generally marked with vigorous acrobatics performed to the tune of popular film numbers, this time broke with tradition in more ways than one: besides the check on sound pollution, Ganpati mandals went anti-polythene with a vengeance, depicting plastic as the demon in their colourful tableaus.

The 10-day festival came to a smooth conclusion, largely due to the efforts of volunteers of the Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti, the 15-year-old Mumbai chapter of Ganeshotsav Mahamandal, the apex body of the sarvajanik (public) Ganeshotsav mandals in Maharashtra. Mumbai’s9,500 mandals, an increase of 500 over last year, are affiliated to the Samiti.

The aural relief is significant as nobody approached the Bombay High Court this year for a time limit on the playing of loud speakers. “We had issued pamphlets this year to Ganeshotsav Mandals exhorting them to not play loudspeakers at a high volume till late in the night and to abstain from cheap filmi programmes. The mandals seem to have followed all that,” said Suresh Sarnobat, general secretary of the Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti.

The step was highly appreciated, more so because no enforcement was called for at any stage. “It is a festival the people have been celebrating for years now. We’re glad that barring certain exceptions the mandals didn’t give cause for the police to intervene for disciplinary reasons,” said Sarnobat.

“The Samiti has, through its pamphlets, been urging the mandals to worship not just Ganpati but all that he stands for knowledge, bravery and love for art. It has been issuing such pamphletssince the time of its inception in 1983 and that practice is bearing fruit now,” said Jyotirbhaskar Jayantrao Salgaonkar, president of the Ganeshotsav Mahamandal. The Samiti, he added, had organised and trained volunteers from mandals all over the city to watch out for untoward incidents. Three thousand volunteers were from Mumbai city alone.

The Samiti also organised workshops in Girgaum and Dadar besides several other places in Mumbai to instruct volunteers about their duties in the Ganesh pandals. The biggest was held in Dadar’s Brahman Seva Mandal, a month before Ganesh Chaturthi. From proper disposal of garbage, starting the aartis on time, checking the volume of loudspeakers, seeing that the mawa modaks offered as prasad were bought from known dealers… the volunteers were responsible for everything. “We had to keep a watch on the prasad part as well because we wanted to rule out the possibility of food poisoning,” said Salgaonkar. The Samiti’s other achievement lies in the fact that Ganeshotsavmandals — at least the bigger ones — seem to have heeded its call to refuse advertisements from gutkha manufacturers, for the second year in a row.

In sum, Samiti officials are pleased with the public Ganeshotsav celebrations this year.