august 27: Ganesh freakout time

Above picture: An uncharacteristically monochromatic Mr. Ganesh

I was in Hyderabad this last week and throughout the week colorful, elephant-headed god statues started lining the streets by the thousands. Every day more and more Ganesh statues appeared. Some of them were 3-feet high and some of them were up to 12-feet high.

At first, I thought it was Hyderabad's "thing". Like, it was their main export. Seriously. There were thousands of these elephant-god things lining the main roads.

My host, the head of TBF's Hyderabad branch, saw that I was confused by all of the colorful, gigantic elephant-guys. So, he explained that the Ganesh Festival was coming up and that Hindus buy these gods to put in front of their houses.

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I joked with my host telling him that I wanted to buy one of the 6-foot high Ganeshs. I told him that I wanted to take one back to Bangalore with me.

He politely explained that it might be kind of impossible to take a 6-foot high Ganesh back to Bangalore.

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Here's the kicker: The Ganesh Festival started on Sunday. As soon as someone is tired of their elephant-man, which I am told takes anywhere from one day-to-two weeks, they carry it to the closest body of water and drown it.

You can just imagine the amount of pollution this causes to the small city lakes of places like Hyderabad and Bangalore. The people here in the office tell me that it quite the sight to see thousands of Ganeshs drowned in Bangalore's small lakes.

I am looking forward to catching a couple of Ganesh immersions.

Lesson of the Day: Supposedly, it's impossible to take 6-foot high elephant-headed gods with you on the train from Hyderabad to Bangalore.