Jai Ganesh!

India is in the middle of the big Hindu Ganesh festival.

No other Indian city (except Mumbai (Bombay)) celebrates this holiday as much as Hyderabad.

To learn more about Ganesh, click on the title which has a link that tells all about Ganesh.

There was a Ganesh procession heading towards my apartment building on Saturday evening.

The drums were becoming louder and louder as the procession became closer. I ran down from the stairs with my camera out on the street. I wanted to just get a few photos of this incredible 'pure India' Hindu festivity.

As they approached, there were about 50 men; most of them were covered with red and green powder, dancing wildly, with drums playing ancient Hindu rhythms. Behind them was 1 huge giant Ganesh idol followed by 4 smaller ones.

When they were closer to me, they saw me taking photos and they ran towards me, dancing like mad men in front of me and posing for my camera.

They looked like primitive tribal men with all the colours splashed over their bodies. Of course, as usual, they all had those endearing beautiful Indian smiles.

Some of them could speak English, and they started asking me all kinds of questions about my self.

One of them asked politely, if I would please dance one time with them. I thought 'why not', what could it hurt. Besides, I can and do dance, so I'd just do a little something and then gracefully bow out.

When I approached the inner group, a very nice young man named Venkatesh introduced himself and gently pushed me forward into the centre of all the action. The music paused and everyone stopped dancing and looked at me.

Then the drummers started up even louder and enthusiastically as before in anticipation that I would start to dance. I took a deep breath... told myself again 'why not' and started jumping and dancing with all my heart to the deep Hindu rhythms.

All the men broke out in accepting smiles and they all started dancing (some what erotically - I might add) along with me! Next thing I knew, I felt something hit me on the head. It was a big handful of that red powder.

Suddenly I saw red powder being thrown at me from all directions amidst all the passionate cheers. I was covered in it, all over, also in my mouth. Then someone behind me put a blue ribbon around my head like the others in the group.

I thought to myself, 'hey, what can this powder hurt, it will all wash off in the shower'.

So I kept on passionately dancing with my new found friends.

After practically passing out from exhaustion from 5 minutes straight dancing at full tempo, I thought that the sensible thing to do would be to stop, thank the guys for this great experience, and go on my way... and wash off all that powder a.s.a.p.

As I started to walk away, suddenly Venkatesh (quite a stout little strong guy) and another man grabbed my legs and lifted me up on their shoulders while they were dancing.

I started to wave my arms around to the music as they carried me along with the forward moving procession.

Eventually they sat me down and I started walking and talking with Venkatesh, and then something touching happened.

A lot of the men came up to me and thanked me and shook my hand. Some even bowed and placed the top of their heads on my stomach (as a sign of respect and appreciation).

I don't think I've ever experienced such a heart warming welcome. Then Venkatesh (shown in the above photo whistling) pinned the groups badge on me saying that I was one of them now.

It turned out that all these guys belonged to the same company that services Hi-Tech City, Hyderabad with their electric installations. Venkatesh turned out to be a supervisor. He introduced me to his (ex) manager, Srinivasa Rao.

Srinivasa then introduced me to his manager, and he introduced me to his manager, and so on. Until I was sampling Indian rum with the top honchos, before gleefully jumping back into the middle of the mayhem!

We danced along for a few kilometres. I especially enjoyed the company of Srinivasa and Venkatesh, partly also because they both spoke good English.

As we proceeded forward, after I'd loose myself in dance for a while, when I needed a break, I'd often run to the security of Srinivasa and Venkatesh.

Actually, they both seemed to be taking care of me during the whole thing and they were controlling the crowd around me from over enthusiastic partiers and so that I would enjoy myself more.

The procession eventually made it's way to the edge of the village where I live (Kothaguda) and Srinivasa said that they all would be going by car to the another village to continue and to meet up with some other employees.

He asked me if I wanted to join. I began to hesitate, and I remember thinking, what would be the most sensible thing to do.

After all, this could be dangerous. Who knows where I could end up? What if I get lost? What if they are really looking for a human sacrifice...? Actually, that thought did cross my mind, but only in my horrid imagination. I could tell I could trust them.

I 'sensibly' thought about it, very carefully, and then I thought. We will have no sensible thinking around here, at least not tonight, and I said 'Sure, I'd love to!'

They were all loading on to the trucks holding the idols and Srinivasa had a nice big luxury car and asked me if I would like to ride with him.

Just then Venkatesh mentioned that he had a motor scooter and asked if I'd like to ride with him!!! Would I ever! I hopped on the back and said 'Let's go!'.

We took off faster than lightning into the night, leaving all the processional idols and cars behind. The night breeze was blowing in my face as we dodged cars and potholes going at top speeds of 80 km an hour. I remember thinking, if I die tonight, it was worth it.

We arrived at the next village early and we sat and talked about our lives. He's in his late 20's, lives in a 2 room apartment with his father and 2 brothers. Loves his work as a supervisor and seems to really care for the welfare of others.

We exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers. He said he wanted to show me more of Hyderabad and the area where we were staying.

We saw the big fat Ganesh elephant / gods roll by from our group. We hopped on the motor again, drove into the village and joined the rest of the guys.

We eventually hysterically danced our way into a valley where there was a small reservoir, and they started to prepare the idol to be immersed in the water.

At the end of the 10 day celebration, the Ganesh idols, made of clay, are submerged into water where they slowly dissolve.

I've tried to find out why, but it seems no one knows the reason that I've spoken with.

The manager conducted the ceremony with fire, incense and chanting. Then, they slowly moved the idol towards the water's edge and after a lot of heaving and hoeing, they finally tipped Ganesh into the water and it quickly sunk.

They started to bring forward the next Ganesh to conduct the same process when Srinivasa asked me if I wanted to join him in his car to talk.

He shared water and roasted beans with me.

We spoke to each other for a long time.

I was thinking about going to watch the rest of the festivities, but the most valuable thing I can take back from me is my experiences with all these wonderful Indian people I'm meeting.

So I stayed in his car (BTW, fighting off mosquito's) until some people walked over and said that it was finished and people were leaving.

Venkatesh said he was going to head back and asked me if I wanted a ride. OF COURSE! Even though, Srinivasa kindly offered again to drive me home, I couldn't pass up another opportunity to ride like the wind on the back of Venkatesh's scooter though the warm Indian night, so I took off with Venkatesh.

He dropped me off at my apartment, gave that warm Indian smile, shook my hand and placed his hand on his heart, nodded and drove off in the darkness.

I walked up towards my room, stopped off at the manager's office to show Mr. Gomes (the apartment manager) what had become of me.

He just laughed and said I looked like a monster. As I was telling him about my fantastic evening, I noticed the hotel staff coming to the side door of the office and laughing, waving and smiling.

As I went up to my room, they all took turns shaking my hand and each of them said 'good night sir', one by one, with genuine respect. They seemed to value the fact that I am so interested in their culture and wanting to be as Indian as possible while I'm here.

'I really do look like a monster', I remember thinking as I looked at myself in the mirror.

Immediately I threw off all my cloths and jumped in the shower (sorry, (or thank goodness) no photos of that).

I was relieved as all the red, green, pink colours flowed off my body and down the drain.

I saw that the red was being splattered all over the walls and the curtains of the shower and I thought that this is the view that an axe murderer has after he's done his deed and is showering off the evidence... sorry, my horrid imagination again.

I dried off, noticed that there was still a pink colour coming off on the towel and I was thinking that this was the last remnants of evidence of the nights activities... until I looked in the mirror! OMG! The colour was still there!

All I could think of was walking through the halls at work on Monday with a pink face!

I drew a bath and ended up washing my face 50 times, until my skin started to hurt!

Actually, by Monday there was still colour on my face, but it was little enough that I didn't look like some weirdo, but just enough remnants for my Indian work colleagues to see that I'm enjoying India.