It is not Just a "Fly-by"

The space shuttle Endeavor flew over Northern California yesterday before landing in LA. Today, most of us who know anybody living there, have received updates via Facebook, YouTube or e-mail showing home videos of this "historic fly-by". As you see the videos, you can hear the excited applause of the viewers as the Boeing 747 shot across the sky carrying precious cargo on its back- the excitement apparent in their postures and sounds.

What is it that makes this fly-by so exciting? After all, most people who took these videos have probably gotten a better and closer look at the shuttle on videos, in books or on the television at some other time. The quick fly-by was hardly long enough or low enough to enable them to see something they had not already seen or could not see by going on to the world wide web.

My thoughts are that as humans we want to combat our inevitable mortality and somewhere all of us are grappling to find an identity and a definition in a world that is becoming so complex that at times it threatens to swallow up our individuality altogether. We want to be part of something bigger than us- something out of the ordinary that will separate us from the crowd and give us a definition. So we look for events such as this and latch on to them. By becoming someone who saw the rare event of a shuttle fly-by we somehow become differentiated and hope that once we die our name we will not just disappear into the oblivion along with a million others- I will not be just Sakshi Goel,  but the Sakshi Goel who was among the selected few who saw the a live fly-by of the Endeavour Space shuttle.

I dread it, I love it, I am going to miss it

This year when Bappa goes back after Chaturthi it will be different. Since I am moving to the US, I am not sure when I will be back in this madness of a city to be a part of this thing which can only be described as "junoon".

I have been living in this city for almost six years now and with each year I have become a little more attuned to its rhythm and beat. I can safely say that as "Ganpati" comes nearer, you can hear this beat begin to quicken. There is so much activity around that at times it almost threatens to swallow you up!  People and cars everywhere. Roads get blocked as the pandals go up.  Festival shopping starts with a bang, and the rain keeps coming down adding its own bit of fury.

And yet there is a sense of well-being that comes with this craziness. You hear the mingled sounds of various loud speakers being tested with the latest Ganpati Bappa Morya song. Everywhere there are young strappy lads of various "societies" all charged up to collect "contributions" from the residents, their contempt barely veiled when they see a hundred rupee note where they actually expected five times of that. The enthusiasm of getting Ganpati home, the simple pleasure of finding the most "dhik chak" light for your "sarvajanik mandal" and the exhausted smiles of the organizers at the end of the day, all create a cozy cocoon that comes from being among people with who you share a heritage of thousands of years and who you may fault for their lack of civic sense but never for a lack of enthusiasm.

So as Ganesh Chaturthi comes around this year I welcome it even though I dread it, knowing that I love it and there is no denying that I will miss it.