Today ends the week long Hindu celebration of the god Ganesh, the elephant headed god. The festival starts and ends on Sunday. Last week some friends and I set out to one of the biggest temples around to pay our respects to Ganesh. We waited in a line outside of the temple and then proceeded to zig-zag our way through the temple (in line) to visit all of the shrines. Afterwards we hit up the bazaar and bought our own little Ganesh statues. There were tables and tables of the small ones and there are also huge ones that are packed together in what I can only compare to a Christmas tree lot (the ones where the trees are already cut down). Families go and pick out their Ganesh and then load it on to a moving truck and bring it home! Each community or family does pooja (a ritual prayer) and on the 3rd, 5th, or 7th day (depending on your preference) you submerge your Ganesh into water (usually a lake). The 7th day is when the largest one is submerged into the large lake here in Hyderabad and there's a big party.
A man making Ganesh molds in the bazaar.
Some moving trucks hauling Ganeshes back home.
Ganeshes Ganeshes de todos los colores y todos los tamaños
The down side to the Ganesh festival this year is that is coincides with the first week of Ramadan. This can cause little conflicts like Ganesh processions, with drums and music and dancing, going by a mosque during prayer on Friday. Also, on campus, when we hear the horn that signifies the beginning and end of fasting for the day we also hear some Hinduesque music playing from loud speakers trying to drown it out. Otherwise things have been very peaceful and after today security won't be so tight around Hyderabad. Our teacher explained that police haven't been as worried about violence because less people are out and about due to swine flu. Ha ha, I guess there's an upside to everything!
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