An Outlet: Part 4

13 September, 2018.

Ganpati Bappa Morya!

Mangal Moorthi Morya!

Today is the 1st day of the Ganpati festival here in India.

A lot of people keep Ganpati's at their place but someone has to go visit these people so every year my family has a fixed set of houses/families that we visit every year during Ganesh Chaturthi.

Most of the people keep their Ganpati only for one and a half day or they live far away, so it becomes imperative for us to visit all these Ganpatis on one day.

Today's that day.

I woke up by 7AM, got dressed up in my traditional clothes and was ready to leave.

It's said to be a good omen to visit 11 Ganpatis in one day so we started out our day with that aim. First we visited one of our building neighbours' place. Surprisingly, their small cute girl recongized me and readily and happily came to talk to me. I'm used to children not giving me any attention so I was kinda glad that this one did. Plus she is so cuteeeeee! She showed me her drawing book and explained each and every one of them. Frankly I had a good time interacting with this kid.

Soon we hit the road and went to my dad's colleagues' place where they serve the best dal pakwan I have ever eaten in my life.

So what normally happens is that we visit someone's place and take the Ganpati idol's blessings. Then the host gives us 'prasad' which is basically a small sweet edible item considered to be holy. Then they give us something to eat, which is a customary Indian thing to do, regardless of any festival.

This family offers their home made dal pakwan and I look forward to it every year. That's like my breakfast for the day. This time, after the prasad, they gave us something else to eat and I'd be lying if I say I wasn't disappointed. But I did hear one of them say "it is coming". So I completely ignored my dad when he suggested that we leave cause no, I'm not leaving that place until I eat my dal pakwan. Call mr selfish but that thing is too delicious to pass on the opportunity to have it. Plus I only have it once in a year so my actions are justified.

I surprised my family (well, my mom and dad. Alex didn't come because he had to study for his upcoming exams. I swear there is no end to their stupid exams) by actually striking a conversation with their daughter (who is a couple of years elder to me) and also talking with the main hosts. Yay!

Then we left for my Uncle K's wife's maternal house. I asked Pamela for the address and she sent that to me in Marathi. Now I can read Marathi but after quite a lot of work (which is sad considering I'm a Maharashtrian). I thought I figured out where the address is on the message but it felt like I was reading a mantra. Apparently, that mantra was the address. Strange places you see.

We reached the place, did the usual and left for my mom's closest cousin brother's place. We always eat our lunch there on the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi so we try to reach there around lunch time. We did so and after lunch I could not help but fall asleep. Normally, I refrain from sleeping in the afternoons and I never sleep at someone else's place unless I have come there for a sleepover/stay over but today, my eyes just shut and I drifted off to sleep for a good hour and a half.

We left from there at around 5 and dropped Amanda and her mom on the way to the next Ganpati's place, which was my dad's college friend's place.

I find the entire family to be a right balance of class and down-to-earth so it's always a positive energy at their place. Another thing that might have triggered my liking towards that place is their decor. Their house is not big but they have decorated it damn well. I always looks for any changes in their decor whenever I visit their place. We then visited their resident Ganpati and left to go towards places nearing my area.

So let's say we were currently at place A and we had three more areas to visit, i.e B, C, and D. C is the place where I live and we had decided to visit the Ganpati's around our area once we finish the ones in B and D. Now we were traveling from A and we would have to pass the basic area of B and C to reach D. So by my logic, it would've been better if we visited the Ganpati at B, then went to D and then came to our area which is C. But nope, dad refused to accept it. He wanted to go to D first. In the end, I gave up because ultimately he was the one was driving.

So we went to 1 Ganpati's place in area D. It was also one of my dad's college friend's place. Infact they were all in the same group. There we met another one of my dad's college mates and his family.

After that, we picked up Alex on the way (he had decided to come to all the evening Ganpati places we visit) and we went to my dad's cousin's place in area B, who had kept a Ganpati after a pretty long time. After reaching there I realised why dad wanted to go to B a little late. Cause apparently all the cousins had pre decided to meet at that particular time.

So the house was filled with people (our cousins and their parents aka dad's cousins and their better halves). I entered the house in the middle of the "Sukhkarta Dukhharta" Aarti. A couple of people entered after me when the Aarti was still going on.

After the Aarti and taking Ganpati's blessings, we all cousins huddled in one room and then began planning about the the upcoming Sangeet ceremony for one of my cousin sisters who is getting married in December. I was surprised that the bride cousin was actually really interested in hosting choreographed dance. Cause traditionally, Maharashtrians never had any Sangeet ceremony. It's been getting introduced only since this generation. I have attended two Sangeets within this family and both the times, there were just impromptu dance sessions. Nothing was choreographed.

This is time tho, when we heard the news of the sangeet, Pamela had decided that my immediate family will surprise everyone by performing a choreographed dance. It's okay tho, everyone will dance now and that's great. The bride sister has told us that she can give up to 8 slots for choreographed dances after which it will be a full on DJ party. I can't waittttt! Who said only Punjabi weddings are fun?!

Everyone had dinner there and then we finally left for visiting the last 3 Ganpatis near my house. I was supposed to visit Mia's place as well but it was already close to 10PM so I decided to go there tomorrow morning.

We quickly visited the remaining Ganpatis and came back home with completely filled stomachs, successfully completing 11 Ganpati visits!

Day 1 of Ganesh Chaturthi ends.

I saw the World of Dance finals round and the Lab won. Congratulations! I wasn't rooting for them but I can't deny that those kids can DANCE.