Ganesh Chaturthi – the festival in adoration of Ganesha – was celebrated all overIndiaon September 1.    The elephant-headed Ganesha is revered as the god of auspicious beginnings.  His representation –   an outsized elephant head that sits on a human body consisting of a huge round belly, four arms , and two legs – could mystify the average traveller unfamiliar with the nuances of Indian mythology.   

The fact is that every aspect of Ganesha’s  representation is replete with complex and profound symbolisms.  The multiple ‘gods’ in Indian mythology are essentially symbolisms, meant to empower people at all levels of intellectual development to deal with their relationships towards their material and spiritual worlds.  Underlying the whole is the dialectic that the very formlessness of god is best understood through awesome form. 

Ganesha’s form symbolizes the balance between the spiritual and material that all human beings need to strive for.  At its simplest.  The elephant symbolizes strength of mind, tenacity and singularity of purpose, and the wisdom to know what is the right action, all of it expressed through  effortlessness (the quality of the elephant, of simply uprooting and throwing  aside the obstacles in its path).  Equanimity, i.e., the ability (accompanied by wisdom) to digest both the good and bad in our material world (symbolized by the big stomach) is as important an attribute as effortlessness.  Of the two principal arms, one hand is held up in a gesture of protection (the confidence and security that right action brings).  The other hand gently points down to the earth   (the ultimate truth that everything  arises from the earth and eventually returns to it).  A third hand holds sweets  – laddoos – symbolising  the fruits of right action, while the fourth holds an axe – ankush -  with which to pierce through the veil of ignorance.   The vehicle on which Ganesha rides  is a tiny mouse.  The mouse represents desire.  Desire is a reality, but unless kept under control it could cause havoc. 

The symbolism of Ganesha essentially draws our attention to these qualities.  In the ultimate analysis, Ganesha is the wisdom that rests within us.  We need to go within and discover ourselves.     

At Savista, we celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi with a simple puja (worship).  In the puja, Ganesha was sanctified as a simple rough little mound of turmeric powder pressed together by hand, symbolic of having been drawn from nature, and to be returned to nature (when immersed in a water body by the end of ten days,  as per the custom). Also in the puja were other representations from nature:   flowers, incense, flaming oil lamps and camphor, fruits, coconuts, betel leaves.  The puja was not so much a religious occasion as a reminder to all of us of the symbolisms of Ganesha.  The person leading the puja invoked Ganesha’s blessings for all those at Savista and their families, and for the success of Savista’s mission.

And here is Susheela Raman singing a south Indian classical kriti (composition) dedicated to Ganesha, set to a South Indian-Afro-Jazz beat. Enjoy the music!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WpFqyl_yKg“

On August 30^th., Muslims in Jaipur celebrate with Muslims across the world, the conclusion of the thirty days of the fasting month of Ramadan.  It is an Eid (festivity), and because it marks the end of Ramadan, it is called Ramadan Eid.   Its more classical name is Eid Ul Fitr, a celebration of Fitr (the restoration of one’s original nature, i.e., pure and unsullied).

Because this restoration is arrived at through a combination of fasting and prayer, it establishes the power of the spiritual realm over the realm of the physical.  In keeping with this spirit of self-purification, it is a day to give up all enmities and hostility.

Eid is a communally celebrated festival, and the prayers on that day – offered in the open – are designed to reinforce the sense of community.

Today is one of the most important and loved festivals of the Hindu calendar – the birth of Lord Krishna.  On this 8^th. day (ashtami) after the full moon in the month of Shravan, at the stroke of midnight, the birth (janma) of Krishna is heralded in homes and temples across
the country with the blowing of conch shells, devotional music and ecstatic dancing and, by many, with fasting, prayer and the reading and recitation of the Bhagavatam (the philosophy expounded by Krishna).

Krishna is loved and worshipped across India, and there are as many forms of worship and expressions of devotion as there are qualities that are attributed to Krishna.  At the simplest level, Krishna is protector and saviour.   At the most complex, Krishna is the epitomy of love, oneness, and absence of boundaries as the only way to true happiness, self discovery and liberation.

Krishna’s significance has been summed up by Osho thus:

“ Man’s mind has always wanted to choose between the seeming opposites.  He wants to preserve heaven and do away with hell.  He wants to have peace and escape tension.  He wants to protect good and destroy evil.  He longs to accept light and deny darkness.  He craves to cling to pleasure and shun pain.  His mind has always divided existence into two parts, and chosen one part against the other.  And from choice arises duality, which brings conflict and pain.

Krishna symbolizes acceptance of the opposites together.  And he alone can be whole who accepts the contradictions together.  One who chooses will always be incomplete, less than the whole,  because the part that he chooses will continue to delude him, and the part that he denies will continue to pursue and haunt him.  He can never be rid of what he rejects and represses…”

The revolutionary and potentially destabilizing challenge of accepting the entire symbolism of Krishna has led most people through the ages to focus on one or the other of his multiple and complex attributes.  The most popular and beloved are of Krishna as the divine child, and Krishna as the divine lover.  Both these identities, with love and longing as the central theme, have been celebrated with an outpouring of poetry, music and dance in both classical and common languages across India.

Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated with tremendous fervour in Jaipur.  And the epicenter for these celebrations is the Govind Devji Temple.  The temple was  built 450 years ago by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh – the founder of the city of Jaipur – within the City Palace complex, as the home for the resident deity of the royal family.  Designed in marble and pink sandstone and adorned with the most exquisitely carved latticed marble window screens, the Govind Devji temple  is well worth a visit just for its architecture and ambience of peace and beauty.  On occasions like Janmashtami it explodes with colour and energy.  Thousands of worshippers throng it, and ecstatic music and dancing accompany the ringing of the temple bells.

Check out this video on youtube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nBiI05gl78&feature=related

The fesitval of Sawan Teej starts tomorrow! Teej is a celebration of the beginning of the Hindu holy month of Sravan.

Sravan is celebrated throughout India under many different names, but the celebration is most extraordinary in Jaipur and is known as Teej. Starting from the Tripolia Gate of the City Palace and ending at Chaugun the traditional royal procession is led through the Tripolia Bazaar and Chhoti Chaupar on the 2nd and 3rd of August. The procession is alive with color and music and dancing as well as elephants, royal chariots and camels oh my!

The video below captures one such duo performing a folk dance as part of the Teej festival in Jaipur 2010. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4y6qAkl12w

As for a bit of history: Teej, is celebrated for many purposes. For Hindu women, Teej is a fasting festival which celebrates the marital bliss that was the union between Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva. Teej is also the name of a small red insect that comes out of the soil when it rains, and thus Teej also celebrates the onset of the monsoon season and a break from the intense heat of summer. And Teej is also known as the festival of swings. Women dance and sing together in sisterhood and play on swings festoooned with flowers and hung from trees. They sing to praise the coming of the monsoon rains, and worship Goddess Parvati in hope of conjugal bliss!

For more specifics about the Teej Festival in Jaipur, visit: www.rajasthantravelguide.com and come join in the merriment yourself!

For most of us Indian coastal city-slickers, mangroves are nature’s protective mechanisms in the tropics that work to human advantage by maintaining the balance between sea and shoreline. Never mind that what we actually see of them along our city shorelines is their ruthless decimation in the interests of land reclamation for ever more apartment buildings. Those that survive are festooned with filthy plastic bags, rags and other urban wastes, and swamped in the stench of rotting human excreta and stagnant mosquito breeding grounds. Continue reading →