Thursday, October 14, 2004
From Ganpati to Navratri...
Hardly some days to rest between two "festivals" : only in Bombay, around 8000 big Ganpatis (between 1 & 2.5m high) & more than 1,5 lakh "familly-idols" (smaller size, - 1lakh=100.000, very practical unit) have been put in the Arabian Sea under strict control of 30.000 policeman & the help of many associations...(The local papers are very factuals, it is a delight to read the festival statistics).
The way to the immersion place can last 24 hours for the last started. The trucks transporting the big Ganpatis are bumper to bumper along the streets, but everybody is happy since each "mandal" has its own band playing music to keep the excitation and all dance almost continuously along the way. I saw one unlucky truck stopped with 4 people in the motor trying to fix the breakdown. Hopefully this idol has finally come to the sea!
I never saw so crowded beaches! I have some great pictures from idol immersion on Juhu beach in Bombay, they will come to iDenTiC soon. Once you reach the seaside, Hindus make a Pooja with "encens" stickers, flowers, color powder, coconut, etc, lighting a fire, singing holly songs "Ganpati", "Loria (?)", clapping in hands, making a 360 deg turn, bringing with both hands the smoke from the fire to their face & hair (Ganesh has a lot of skills to share : success, prosperity, intelligence, etc)...and then bathing to eventually sink the idol. Even seen from outside big emotion watching those uncountable naive but deeply spiritual scenes.
Note that every year this festival is an ecological desaster (not only in the sea, also in all indian rivers). After some days the Bombay tide brings back to the beach all the idol's rest, after they have broken down in the sea. Yesterday two newspapers were showing a pond covered with dead fish floating. The Hindu was commenting likely due to the toxic chemicals used to color the Ganesh idols, the Times of India was more carefull and explaining it by possible lack of oxygen...
The coming festival is now Navratri. 9 days of beautifull clothes & dances with epicenter in Gujarat (that's what I heared, I'll have to check). All women are supposed to be now busy in order to have a flat tummy on the D-day ...
Back on Earth. Last time I went to my bank, I met first an hindu employee, as he heard about the purpose, he called his boss who understood a bit deeper, finally I landed in front of an Sikh's desk. Looks really like everywhere real money is at stake, the position is held by one of our color-turbaned friends (also at cash machine in many restaurants). As he hered that I was french, he asked immediatly about the latest french law that was sincerely not understood by the Sikh community (nowadays some news are really propagating faster & farther than one could believe!). I tried to explain him the main purpose of this law, but I was not myself convinced that this consequence was acceptable, so I went out of the bank with the conviction the law was unfair and had to be reformulated. Meanwhile, the Sikh community has complained in front of the european court...let's see what will come out!
Saw on the plane some nice films : "Troya", not as bad a expected, really liked B. Pitt screaming "Hector, Hector..." under the massive troyan walls. Good original soundtrack, especially the single voice heard during the many (!) funerals... The next was "Main hoon nah" ("I am here")avec l'incontournable "SRK" (Shah Rukh Kahn). With subtitle, so unique opportunity to understand even the dialogs! Very good surrealistic jumps from SRK, especially the one driving a three-wheeler in the air and shooting dead some enemies at the same time, so incredible that the time is froozen & the camera is making a "360" all around with a huge american tear-noise to mark this magic instant.
As if it was no enough, I went with my kashmiri friends to see "Bride & Prejudice" ( might be released under "Balle! Balle! from Amritsar to L.A." in the US, UK & France). This film is supposed to be a test to see how the Bollywood style could be successfull worlwide for a larger audience than the usual indian community. Go & see it. It is a love story between an penjabi indian girl (Aishwarya Rai, aiaiai...) and a white american (Bizarre, I forgot the name!...), reviewing a lot of clichees of indian mama looking for the perfect son-in-law for her...4 daughters, of successful US- and UK-indians back to their home country. Good joke about swimming pools...Good entertainement with a lot of colors & dynamic music.
India is definitly great!
During that time, Agnes & Benoit S. (my remote french family from Paris) noticed after 6 months that Wolf, their lovely cat was a female...How did it happend? Just by bringing the young boy to the vet for castration... No comment :)
The way to the immersion place can last 24 hours for the last started. The trucks transporting the big Ganpatis are bumper to bumper along the streets, but everybody is happy since each "mandal" has its own band playing music to keep the excitation and all dance almost continuously along the way. I saw one unlucky truck stopped with 4 people in the motor trying to fix the breakdown. Hopefully this idol has finally come to the sea!
I never saw so crowded beaches! I have some great pictures from idol immersion on Juhu beach in Bombay, they will come to iDenTiC soon. Once you reach the seaside, Hindus make a Pooja with "encens" stickers, flowers, color powder, coconut, etc, lighting a fire, singing holly songs "Ganpati", "Loria (?)", clapping in hands, making a 360 deg turn, bringing with both hands the smoke from the fire to their face & hair (Ganesh has a lot of skills to share : success, prosperity, intelligence, etc)...and then bathing to eventually sink the idol. Even seen from outside big emotion watching those uncountable naive but deeply spiritual scenes.
Note that every year this festival is an ecological desaster (not only in the sea, also in all indian rivers). After some days the Bombay tide brings back to the beach all the idol's rest, after they have broken down in the sea. Yesterday two newspapers were showing a pond covered with dead fish floating. The Hindu was commenting likely due to the toxic chemicals used to color the Ganesh idols, the Times of India was more carefull and explaining it by possible lack of oxygen...
The coming festival is now Navratri. 9 days of beautifull clothes & dances with epicenter in Gujarat (that's what I heared, I'll have to check). All women are supposed to be now busy in order to have a flat tummy on the D-day ...
Back on Earth. Last time I went to my bank, I met first an hindu employee, as he heard about the purpose, he called his boss who understood a bit deeper, finally I landed in front of an Sikh's desk. Looks really like everywhere real money is at stake, the position is held by one of our color-turbaned friends (also at cash machine in many restaurants). As he hered that I was french, he asked immediatly about the latest french law that was sincerely not understood by the Sikh community (nowadays some news are really propagating faster & farther than one could believe!). I tried to explain him the main purpose of this law, but I was not myself convinced that this consequence was acceptable, so I went out of the bank with the conviction the law was unfair and had to be reformulated. Meanwhile, the Sikh community has complained in front of the european court...let's see what will come out!
Saw on the plane some nice films : "Troya", not as bad a expected, really liked B. Pitt screaming "Hector, Hector..." under the massive troyan walls. Good original soundtrack, especially the single voice heard during the many (!) funerals... The next was "Main hoon nah" ("I am here")avec l'incontournable "SRK" (Shah Rukh Kahn). With subtitle, so unique opportunity to understand even the dialogs! Very good surrealistic jumps from SRK, especially the one driving a three-wheeler in the air and shooting dead some enemies at the same time, so incredible that the time is froozen & the camera is making a "360" all around with a huge american tear-noise to mark this magic instant.
As if it was no enough, I went with my kashmiri friends to see "Bride & Prejudice" ( might be released under "Balle! Balle! from Amritsar to L.A." in the US, UK & France). This film is supposed to be a test to see how the Bollywood style could be successfull worlwide for a larger audience than the usual indian community. Go & see it. It is a love story between an penjabi indian girl (Aishwarya Rai, aiaiai...) and a white american (Bizarre, I forgot the name!...), reviewing a lot of clichees of indian mama looking for the perfect son-in-law for her...4 daughters, of successful US- and UK-indians back to their home country. Good joke about swimming pools...Good entertainement with a lot of colors & dynamic music.
India is definitly great!
During that time, Agnes & Benoit S. (my remote french family from Paris) noticed after 6 months that Wolf, their lovely cat was a female...How did it happend? Just by bringing the young boy to the vet for castration... No comment :)
Monday, October 04, 2004
Moment's notice
Au loin les elephants roses en apne
Revent du festival des moon-cakes - et pleurent
Ici ou la Chine fete ses 55 annees
Un saxophoniste entone "petite fleur"
Shanghai, october 1st, 2004
Revent du festival des moon-cakes - et pleurent
Ici ou la Chine fete ses 55 annees
Un saxophoniste entone "petite fleur"
Shanghai, october 1st, 2004
