I have been involved in our Society's Ganeshotsav preparations for quite some time now. Every year, around ten of us, all of us are of the same age group(late teens to early twenties now), take the initiative to organize a Ganeshotsav in our co-operative housing society. We have a lot of fun while organising it. Of course, there are disappointments at times, but overall, if one is completely dedicated to his/her work he/she gets that feeling of being a part of a community. This feeling is something which we rarely experience these days. The good feeling! :-) This feeling of doing something, being a part of something irresepective of your problems at home/work/college and coming together for 2-3 weeks, meeting, planning, debating over retrospectively small things, taunting one another, sharing the responsibility. This is something we may be doing in college for say, the festivals, or at work for some event etc. but rarely in housing societies these days.
And even myself. I feel that I live in a co-operative housing society only once in a year. During Ganpati. Otherwise, who cares about one's neighbours these days! Everyone is so busy with his/her work that coming together as a community to do something is very very rare. I feel really bad at times that we, so-called civilized citizens do not even maintain regular contact with our neighbours. I feel a little awkward at times when I meet my neighbours outside. A smile at times. Not even that otherwise. There are many deeper reasons for this sort of behaviour as well. I live in Dahanukar Colony which falls in the Kothrud area of Pune city. This Dahanukar Colony is one of the most well-off areas in the city. One would find a pretty homogeneous society here. Mostly a Brahmin-dominated colony with people coming from the middle or upper middle class. But that is not my point. I do not wish to study my area socio-economically at this point. would do that. I have done that to some extent already. One would find a certain behavioural trait associated with people living in Dahanukar Colony. I would not generalize. I know very very notable exceptions to this trait as well. Anyway, that is something one has to live with and respect. For, this is what living in a society would ideally mean. Whatever differences we have, we respect the differences. Up to the point we feel it is not harmful for the rest. Tolerance is something we should learn by living in a society. But there is another value which I would like to stress upon here. Fraternity. The feeling of brotherhood/sisterhood. I remember my Civics textbook in school where we used to have some part from the Constitution where we said we would be honest, peaceful, tolerant, secular and fraternal citizens of this country and even the world.
I do not wish to go deep into the issues of societal structure and the dynamic relationship of it with nation-building at this point. For, I find myself incapable of it at this point. I just want to share something which we have been doing in our society for some time now. I am proud of what we do during Ganpati. But then there are always more things which can be done. Why only during Ganpati? Of course, we would love to have that feeling of community during other times of the year as well. I would also like to highlight the fact that even we are not perfect organizers. We have our low moments. There are people even in our society who get left out. Someone with some serious family problem feels left out. Someone with a certain physical/mental disability may feel left out. Our watchmen who guard the Ganpati and the buildings may feel left out and think - what wrong did I do that I and my family cannot enjoy the privileges all these people enjoy? It's all a part of social structure. Again a very deep thing it is. But we have to live on. Live and let live.
We, ten or so young people love organizing Ganpati Utsav here. It all begins with laziness initially, but as Ganpati comes closer we go through that phase - Arey Ganpati basvaychay ka nahi? Serious vha na zara! (Should we install ganpati this year or not? Please be serious, people), then we start collecting contribution from the people living in our society. Starting with booking the Ganpati idol, to planning for events to held during Ganpati. Decorating the place around the Ganpati with lights, mandav, padade(curtains :-p) and small things which we fight on during the decoration part. It is fun! There is a lot of emotion involved. One does not know whether God exists or no. But let us assume he exists(mathematics does show everywhere). Even if we assume so, all of work day and night, plan, meet people in our society and say aartis, organize events, food etc. Don't we feel something different? We do. I have felt it. I have felt emotionally very different when I am involved in things like this. When your feeling is pure and innocent, when you just want to do it, you don't care about pessimistic things. You do not worry about the existence of God. If the assumption of his existence can make us think so much about ourselves, about our family, about our society, about the happiness of our society, why worry about the non-existence part deeply? Why intellectualize so much? I just love being a part of something and if God is something that brings people together, so be it. I believe in God for that. I may not agree with all the rituals and traditions. But I feel connected to my society, to my country through this God. I love doing this. I would like to thank all my friends in my society for taking the initiative and making things work. It is a good feeling. Emotional but good. No doubt. We still have 6 days of Ganpati left in our society as I write this. I am sure we'll do well this time too. Ganpati Bappa Moraya! Ani jara pavsacha bagh re Ganaraaya! Khup padtoy ya varshi! Thambavach ata! ;-)
