Monday, September 04, 2006

Ganesh Utsav

I do not understand why there should be purdah between Lord Ganesha and his devotees at Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav’s mandaps in Mumbai unlike Pune? Why the Shree Ganesha idol is kept in enclosed pandal with small openings for incoming and outgoing ? Why devotees are not allowed to take darshan of Mangalmurti openly and freely? Why the devotees are forced to stand in serpentine queue and wait for hours before they could finally enter pandal and worship Gajanana?

Is it only because of Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandals / Volunteers wants to prove their popularity or increase their importance by showing off the world, the long queue in front of their pundal? Do they get some sort of sadistic pleasure watching and senselessly controlling devotees including women, children, and old person who are waiting and waiting and waiting in the long queue?

Don’t they realize that the devotees wish to visit another pandals too and wish to take darshan of Ganapati’s as many as they can and they should not be wasting their time and energies at one place only, which is easily avoidable ? Or at least they could see that the queue is fast moving. Also from safety point of view isn’t those types of pundals dangerous ? Where is the easy way out in case of mishap ?

Why those pepole wants to earn few quick bucks by way of selling special darshan passes ? Many places I found volunteers selling special darshan passes, where one can avoid the long queue and can go straight inside the enclosed mandap. I once tried this easy but expensive method only to find out there were many alike minded persons and landed in to a queue even thou smaller.

Volunteers must realize that the festivals, which we are celebrating are for the community and not for only themselves.

The ease of devotes must be their priority. May be those Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Mandals should visit and learn management of handling large crowd from G.S.B. Ganapati , King Circle.

1 comment:

Undercover Mother said...

This sounds suspiciously like priests selling indulgences in the Catholic church during the middle ages. Actually, it sounds suspiciously like plain old human nature.