22 August 2020
“Ano Corona is more haunting than most, and we are drawing toward the last quarter with August gone mostly. In living memory of most people, this would have been literally the most damp and dampening circumstances in which the Bappa came home. Through common sense and government fiat, his size is much reduced. The corner pandal is diminutive, there is no external lighting, no ornate decor leading to it, and practically I would have missed it if I did not know to look for it. In living memory, I cannot think of a Ganpati Festival or Ganesh Chaturthi as it is called, for the Lord of all Auspicious Beginnings and who is supposed to remove obstacles feted with such a contrasting timidity and deferment.
The bug has gotten into our system. The government says there is no community transmission. The ambulances release their sirens, and in their wails, whether they chorus this or oppose this notion, we can quite never tell, because we cannot guess if they carry sick normal people or sick Covid19 people. We took some interest when a superstar and his family got admitted in a Mumbai Hospital, we also noted how several cabinet ministers including the powerful Home Minister of India got admitted to super specialty private hospital in the outskirts of Delhi. We are aware that former President Pranab Mukherjee is sick in the Army Hospital at Delhi as well, and Super Singer Star SP Balasubramanian is sick in Chennai’s MGM Hospital.
Has the news reports of famous people sick and serious affected us? Has the Jobs report that mentioned loss of 2/5ths of India’s formal economy jobs dampened the mood for festivities? Is there a problem because of change in agricultural procurement from now on, that farm sector is not spending, or is there a severe constraint due to lack of farm income in real terms? Inflation has breached the Monetary Committee’s target for last two quarters. We know the informal sector is yet to reassemble after the abrupt disruption of Lock Down. What is the reason for this low key festivity?
The queue has formed up. There are guards who guide you, volunteers too, who ensure that you are keeping physical distance from the next devotee. May be Tirupati’s reports of a local outbreak with all attendant precautions taken by the mighty TTD has created a sense of caution? Rumours of priests dying, of crowd control staff succumbing to the deadly virus are difficult to corroborate and even harder to deny. For death is individual, it is private. Decency and other barriers exist, besides the kin not wanting now to embrace a stigma that has come to be associated with Covid19. It is a ‘damned if you disclose and damned if you don’t’ situation. But this is India, and every thing can still get fixed for a price!
The lips are moving with fervour, but they are unseen, mere flickering of movement behind the masks that cover them. Muffled chants rise through the wet air, travelling farther than they otherwise would. Oh! They are taking his many names! They are in fervent prayer… Are they asking Bappa to take this dreaded Corona Virus along with him when he gets immersed, and unlike him, they wouldn’t want the virus to come back next year for sure! We have not seen any plateau in this current wave and scientists are noting that Europe appears to be in the early stages of a second one? Is the Indian weakened by a worsening economic climate even before the Pandemic, capable of seeing this through for another monsoon? Why can this virus not do what the SARS virus did, undergo a mutation and vanish? ‘Why can’t Bappa perform this one miracle for us? Surely some good can happen. Let us pray fervently for this virus to vanish’. Another thought comes up, ‘No Bappa, forget that wish, it seems foolish. Rather I wish that the vaccines that are under test and now in clinical trials, may they all succeed! Let there be no hitch in their mass production! Let us be successful in vaccinating our way through this Pandemic!’ Why has no vaccine manufacturer in India called their potential vaccine after Bappa? The Russians have already called theirs Sputnik V!
No one is pushing or jostling. I think, how nice it would be to now go to Tirupati for Balaji Darshan. They will only yell- ‘jarahandi” ( move) but no one will tug at your shirt or trouser and shove you forward the guy ropes approaching the sanctum queue! Even in Pre Pandemic time, after Darshan of Balaji is over, the attendants appear friendly, you feel electrified and fulfilled, none worse from all that grind. Still this new pandemic norm is more ‘decent’ ? More relaxing? Why can’t they always have a e-permit and advanced booking system and cap the number of devotees for darshan? O’ What a Blessing it is to have no VIPs for Darshan. Even the nukkad Ganapati is so relaxed without the local dada or corporator around!
Oh, I forget how suddenly Bappa came around this time. Only the carefully calendared and deeply cultural would have marked the count down. Most realised just a day or two. Choices were limited, the stalls few and no familiar faces to offer you your Bappa to take home. Organic, the one which would grow into a plant by itself, the unfired one, the one made with plaster of paris substitutes, clay mould readies on push carts were all missing. No on line sales, no Flip Kart or Amazon flourish to sell, certainly no Chinese Ganeshas and lighting this year. You had no choice, that is how spoilt you were for lack of choice is also a good thing in a pandemic. You linger less on the streets, and more importantly you talk less with others, and in times like these, fixed price has a whole new meaning! When we couldn’t do anything about electricity bills which were gross when the Unlock began, charging us as per new tariff plan for cumulative of three months reading at one go despite charging monthly from us a minimal average amount, we had acquired a new understanding of ‘fixed’! Any way, scientists would be happy, because talking or speaking loudly to make ourselves heard in public is more dangerous than speaking softly and avoiding interactions for more than 3 minutes was ‘safe behaviour’. Behind the face shield, underneath the N95 Mask, worn over a absorbent cotton bandana or kerchief, most of the neighbourhood appeared unrecognisable anyway. But the deportment of these vendors was different. Some of them spoke in accents like the new delivery agents who came when Unlock happened. They also appeared to possess a different body language, reflecting on a mental adjustment that was still in the making, as they grooved into the new job they had grabbed.
In a strange way, yet in a familiar fashion, Bappa came home. In the house, he was worshipped starting today, but this time, the door is not kept open. The neighbours are not to be welcomed. It is each to his own. Bappa is now very personal. He will not bless the next door master, or the one floor up auntyji, the one who was always clad in Whites, with her flawless skin and beautific smile. ( God bless her soul, she passed away just ten days back, they say from ‘Old Age only’ when their flats were sealed due to Corona cases.) Suddenly it struck me, that what Bal Gangadhar Tilak started as a mass mobilisation project returned a full circle to become a near private affair once more, a century later. Our Bappa will miss songs sung in chirpy voices, the arthi where the uncle from next block will come on the first Thursday and sing in his gruff voice and on the day for visarjan. Oh, that reminds me, I need to look up that circular on WhatsApp for visarjan sites earmarked for our neighbourhood. I look at Bappa, diminutive- yes, diminished- no! I myself am at the cusp between middle age and old age, and this year is a year of many cross overs! Oh! It is still raining, and I have not had a bonda at Karjhat, or batata wada anywhere for that matter nor gone to see any water falls…In this year of the copious rains, in this year of Corona, when Bappa has come!”
“Ganapati Bappa Maurya”!
( As narrated by a child hood friend)
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