Loud and clear

I walked down to the grocery store this morning and noticed that the local Ganpati pandals are getting simpler in external design. There were two of them that I passed, one at the end of a cul-de-sac leading to the neighbourhood garden and the other at the entrance of the shopping complex through which I needed to walk to get to the store I was headed for. Where every year I have seen the path to these little enclosures within which the Elephant god sits for a few days all decorated with buntings and elaborate light arrangements, this time it seemed strangely bare, with bamboo scaffolding, a few advertising banners and some coloured lights. The deity is nice closed off to the public gaze, swathed in curtains and draperies, the entrance concealed behind very heavy fabric. The organisers used to charge for entry, but now I think that is not allowed by law, but who knows what scams people come up with to make money!

But the most annoying thing about these pandals, apart from the traffic around them and the crowds hanging about, is the noise that they make. The large enclosure in the cul-de-sac was oddly quiet - maybe the festivities happened only in the evening, who knows. The one near the plaza was blaring devotional songs with a very filmi flavour, at top volume. The music was not bad, not overly nasty or tacky, but the noise level was all that and more. As I walked past, trying to peek into the curtained space to see what the fuss was all about, I had to plug my ears or else cringe and feel assaulted by the sound. As I was anyway.

Making all that noise as a sign of devotion is peculiarly Indian. Where many rituals from all over the world use music and loud chanting and even yelling to bring worshippers closer to thee, oh Lord, it is perhaps only here that we channel the populist vote and grab attention, eyeballs and eardrums with speakers blaring and no one especially concerned about issues like noise pollution and deafness. Perhaps in this country of so many billion people, all needing divine intervention, we need to make a lot of noise to be 'seen', who knows!