Discarded Hindu God Does Not Bless India's Waters

September 3, 2000

Discarded Hindu God Does Not Bless India's Waters

By BARRY BEARAK

Santosh Verma for The New York Times

An artist puts finishing touches on a statue of Ganesh, the Hindu god, before it is sold in Bombay for the annual Ganesh Festival.

OMBAY, Sept. 1 -- The Hindu god Ganesh -- bestower of happiness and eliminator of sorrow -- is a hard man to miss in a crowd. He has four arms and the head of an elephant. His pot belly is Sumo-sized. He fully indulges his fondness for gold jewelry.
Surely, there was no missing him today, at the start of Bombay's annual Ganesh Festival. Tens of thousands of brightly painted statues of the long-trunked deity were carried through the streets, then put in honored places in private homes or elaborate outdoor shrines. Most of these plaster-of-Paris idols are small, less than knee-high, but some stand a stunning 20 feet or more.
The festival is a 10-day celebration, with as much partying as prayer, but this year more than the monsoon will try to rain on any parades. Nothing against Ganesh himself, but environmentalists do not like the way the event traditionally ends, with the icons disposed of in a ceremonial immersion, "returned to nature" by leaving them to disintegrate in lakes, creeks and the conveniently located Arabian Sea.
"Within 24 hours you get massive fish deaths from the toxins in the paint," said Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary Asia, an environmental magazine published here. "The sentiment is pure but the reality is polluted. All that plaster forms an impermeable layer on the water's bottom so that organisms can't breathe."
The biggest share of the used Ganeshes is immersed along Chowpatty Beach. It is a gargantuan and joyous spectacle, with 500,000 people passing through, many of them wading into the water, gods in hand.
But a day later, at low tide, the beach looks like a hideous battlefield. Beheaded and dismembered Ganeshes lie marooned in the shallows.
Scavengers and city workers pick up what they can. "Frankly, it's a very sad sight," said Kedar Gore, the education officer of the World Wide Fund for Nature -- India. The group has issued an "urgent appeal" against immersion.
"Serious damage is being done to the sea floor," Mr. Gore said sternly.
So far, these entreaties have been so much incense in the wind, a disregarded blasphemy, something akin to asking Americans to quit chopping down evergreens at Christmas time. Immersion is considered an important rite, a reverent way to dispose of the inanimate statue after Ganesh's spirit has moved on.
The environmentalists admit they have a tough, and perhaps impossible, cause to sell. Besides, Bombay's problems with pollution go far beyond remnant Ganeshes.
This is India's financial center, with 12 to 14 million people packed so tightly they are almost fastened. Magnificent high-rises tower above some of the world's biggest slums. There is enough traffic to turn a crosstown drive into a two-hour trip. Factories feed the sea a buffet of nickel, cadmium, sulfur and untreated human waste. Chowpatty Beach, on its best days, is rife with garbage.
The sculptor Vijay R. Khatu, a man with a paunch to match even Ganesh's, makes a point of these failings. He is Bombay's best-known idol maker -- and, when asked, he said the opponents of immersion can go jump in the lake.
"The Ganesh Festival comes once a year," he said. "Every day, the factories dump chemicals in the sea and the big ships leave their diesel."
Mr. Khatu specializes in the bigger statues. They are not terribly expensive, at least for the rich. A 22-foot idol costs about $2,000, he said. Materials are cheap, mostly plaster, wood, mud, coconut hair and spray paint.
Each year, the Ganeshes seem to grow taller. Political parties and neighborhood associations want a god bigger than the next guy's.
Bombay's notorious mobsters also like to show off. The dons commission huge statues, attempting to win the people's good will. Smalltime goons use the Ganesh Festival for extortion, extracting "donations" from shopkeepers.
"Things have taken an unacceptable turn," complained G.R. Khairnar, one of the city's top administrators. "The religious part of the festival is getting lost."
Actually, the Ganesh Festival -- as celebrated in Bombay and the state of Maharashtra -- is rooted more in politics than religion. It began in 1897 at the instigation of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the leader of the freedom movement against the British. Large political gatherings had been banned, but religious festivals were exempted. Ganesh was used by Mr. Tilak as a loophole.
During the early festivals, religious skits were full of double meanings as the freedom fighters tried to stir people into action. Political uses of the celebration continue even now, with Ganesh often portrayed as favoring one party's ideology over another.
For those uses, as something of a running mate, the elephantine god is a fine pick. He is extremely popular -- especially in India's south and west -- very often a Hindu's first choice from the pantheon of deities. While Ganesh is thought to be wise and strong, there also seems something benign in the look of his macabre body, even if he does ride around atop a rat.
There are various myths about how Ganesh came to look half-human, half-pachyderm. One has him guarding an entrance as his mother, Parvati, bathed. As the god Shiva approached, the boy blocked his way, and the stronger deity cut him in two at the neck. To later pacify the grieving -- and decidedly angry -- Parvati, Shiva replaced the missing head with another from the first animal he found, an elephant.
Another story -- this one especially popular with parents -- has Ganesh's mother and father staging a race between him and his brother. The distance: three laps around the world. Ganesh's sibling, the better athlete, speedily began. But Ganesh, the wiser, simply circled his parents, telling them irresistibly that they were his world and he needed to go no farther.
Pramilla Nyalpelly finds that tale aptly Ganeshian. "He has perfect wisdom," she said, standing before the idol that her husband, Krishna, had brought home. Incense burned in the fading afternoon light. The statue was happily adorned with flowers and surrounded by offerings of bananas, sweets and coins. "Ganesh gives me everything without my asking. He knows what is in my heart and in my head."
Krishna Nyalpelly's extended family -- two dozen people -- convenes to celebrate the festival together. An art director in an ad agency, he creates a different shrine each year. This time, Ganesh is surrounded by paper lily pads and butterflies.
There was a cheerful look to the idol's face, but the Nyalpellys insisted that in a few days the same Ganesh will start to frown. "He won't want to leave our home because he'll feel he has become part of the family," said Mrs. Nyalpelly.
But however much he might wish otherwise, Ganesh must depart, she said. That is the teaching. "Everything about life leads to leaving. Every life comes with a death. Joy and sorrow are two sides to the same coin."
In 10 days, the family will carry their Ganesh on a three-hour walk to Chowpatty Beach. There they will place him in the water, leaving him to disintegrate, one with the sea.

Ask questions about International News and tell other readers what you know in Abuzz, a new knowledge network from The New York Times.

Help/Feedback | Classifieds | Services | New York Today

Hosted by Zahavy Inc.