what are you thinking?? i’m talking about lord Ganesh. i love him, immensely and completely. but i don’t go to the temple often. i don’t brave the serpentine queue on tuesdays outside siddhivinayak temple to see him. i don’t go to pandals and don’t give any donations (willfully).

i am helpless, don’t know how to communicate to him.

i don’t own a pandal. i don’t playsexy sexy mujhe log boleandzabaan pe laagaand other erotic numbers for him and his blessed devoted  bhakts. i don’t make an attempt to play music so loud that gods in heaven could hear.  i don’t play housie, lotto or tambola. i don’t drink alcohol behind the pandals in the night when god is asleep. i don’t wait with baited breath for bunty’s (babe+aunty) or duncles (dude+uncle) to grace the pandaal with their organic and orgasmic presence. then how could god be pleased? how will god ever be happy with me, minus all of the above? am i cursed? or am i overtly idealistic. anyways, i know that i am different. different towards the indifferent.

i’m not the herd, i choose to be heard. and i have right to choose what i want to hear. it’s a free world. i live in a free country. a democratic country. we have laws. but god damn laws.

one side we have rock on. one side we have rassi bomb. rock on is a welcome sabbatical, rassi bomb is fanatical. and gods are involved in both. both see god in rock.

and that’s what we have minimized god to. “a rock”. a rock that has no emotion, no sadness, no elation.

i wish to tell you Ganesh, i empathize with you. and i feel bad for you. for your namesake bhakts are involved in unparallel piety with zilch pity towards you, the deity. they engage in a gaudy flaunt of what they feel is godly. do you call this ignorance Ganesh? sorry my beloved little tusker, i beg to differ, i choose to call it arrogance and not ignorance.

the rogue is in vogue. religion today, is passion, is fashion, once upon a time it was compassion.

Ganesh is the most humane god. and you choose to kill fishes by polluting their habitat by using harmful chemicals to paint the idols. options unavailable? we are a country who set paradigms in design, art, science, humanities and architecture. are we so wisped intellectually and creatively?  we can’t think of eco-friendly options? but, who will put in that extra effort? rather the real question is… why put in that extra effort? you might not feel for those fishes. for you might be a fish-eater and might argue that a fish is a fish is a dish. but, what about the fisher folk? what about their business? what about the child of a fisherman who looks at the catch with ravenous eyes, for if the catch is good, the sale is good, would he get his tummy fill morsel of food.  irrespective of whether i approve of the fishing vocation or not, i have a grand echelon of commiseration with the fisher folk.

and we call ourselves educated, what happened to the text books of 4th grade when we learnt about preservation of eco-system. and we had a chapter in 9th standard about flora and fauna, biogeochemical cycles? all forgotten and forgone? and we are educated? really? if you have passed 9th grade and laze around in the brilliance of ignorance towards the apathy of mother earth, to me you are a mindless and uneducated.

and i am fermenting in angst because it concerns me. irrespective, whether you are in tokyo or timbuktu, if you harm the ecosystem, it affects me. now that the earth gives us the stimuli we have responses. but what when there is no stimulus?  what if you have no time to respond? what if mother earth gives up after being bruised, battered, and raped by humans? all in the name of god!

will “my” friend Ganesh help you?