Ganesha Again 2011

[frenchmystiquetour]

Okay, you've all seen kerouac's Ganesha threads from years past so I have nothing new to offer except photos from this year's event. Why bother explaining anything (since I know nothing about the ritual signifance of the event anyway) and why not just get on to the photos. I started at Gare du Nord and walked up rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis so I could get ahead of the procession and photograph the still somewhat empty street.














Ahead of the procession is one of the municipal street cleaning trucks. A person walks in front of the truck with a hose and sprays down the street along the route. I'm assuming this is because those in the procession are all barefoot and so anything sharp or unsanitary is washed out of the path. The spray looked foamy so I'm assuming there was some sort of disinfectant in it. Now you know why the streets all look wet, not rain related. Although the skies looked dark at times the rain stayed away. Now on to the crowd photos.

I heard a great ruckus not far off so I ran in the direction of the noise to get some shots of the start of the procession.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Pictures are all fine and well but to get the full effect of the energy and noise a video is much more helpful.







You might have noticed one of the peacock feather dancers in that last video looked a little out of control and was being restrained somwhat by an assistant. While the rest of the dancers all seemed in control and in tune with their surroundings this guy was definitely in an out of this world trance. He seemed to have re-entered the world when I saw him at the end of the parade a few hours later.





The women with the fire on their heads must have to be extremely careful. I could imagine with all the women in long flowing gowns and the free flying fabric everywhere that one wrong move with the fire would result in disaster.















There were two other members of the procession who were also in trance. It seemed as though these two were meant to be in trance and had very specific roles to perform. One of them was this woman with the green dress. She danced in front of one of the floats/altars.







The guy in the above picture thanked me for taking his photo by applying some of the orange pigment in his coconut to my forehead.

[frenchmystiquetour]

There were many altars set up along the street with what appeared to be plates of offerings.




Unlike the men pulling floats, the women pulling their float did not go topless.








Of course, what religious festival would be complete without Eiffel Towers for sale.....




…...or Mickey and Minnie....




…..or Hello Kitty...




Here is the second of the dancers in trance.










Earlier in the day I had seen neatly piled mounds of coconuts lining the parade route. Later I found out what was their fate.




With all the barefoot people the procession was always preceeded by people sweeping the coconut shell fragments out of the way.

[frenchmystiquetour]

This is how to break a coconut.












There's nuthin' like a good old fashioned coconut smashin'!




I left the coconut smashin' covered in coconut milk and the orange pigment the coconuts had been anointed with. I'm still picking coconut shell shards out of my hair.

[frenchmystiquetour]

The trance guy did not break character.






All the faithful (or maybe not so, and just having fun) appeared to be happy to pose for a picture if you asked them.










I decided I would take some side streets and walk ahead of the procession to get some final shots. I went up to rue Ordener where I practically had the street to myself.








At last the silence was broken by the sound of drums.

[frenchmystiquetour]

I had been following the procession for close to 3 hours and I was feeling like I had my fill. I still hadn't seen The Temple but maybe next year. I'm sure I'll be back.

[nycgirl]

Great photos and videos! You're right about that dancer, he did look out of control. He seemed close to hitting someone upside the head with his peacock apparatus.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Yeah, like me.

[Deleted]

It is wonderful to see this through fresh eyes at last! I did not see myself in any of your pictures, by the way, although you have some good shots of my apartment.

I'll probably add a few of my pictures later, but you have done a fantastic job, FMT!

[sojoh]

Wasn't the festival great? We had a wonderful time. The sights, the sounds, the food - I can't wait to go again next year.

We must have been in some of the same areas at the same time because I recognized at least two of the people in your photos that are also in mine. I'm going to use one of them, a photo of a women in a red sari with a clay pot on her head, in tomorrow's blog post.

Did you eat lunch there? After wandering around we finally managed to find a table and had some delicious Briyani.

Thanks for sharing all of the great photos!

[mich64]

Wow, that looks like so much fun. I love all the different sari's on the women, beautiful colors and fabrics. It seems to be quite an interesting Parade, would have enjoyed being there for this. Quite organized as well. Wonderful photos FMT!
Cheers,
Mich

[sojoh]

Kerouac2, I cross-posted with you above. Now that I know for sure that you were at the festival, I hope that a "pushy" American woman didn't block your view of a good photo opportunity today. When I realized that I had blocked one man behind me, my immediate thought was, "Oh my gosh, I hope that wasn't Kerouac!" If it was, I'm sorry.

By the way, you live in a FUN neighborhood! I would be eating Indian food every night if I lived there.

[frenchmystiquetour]

Kerouac - The only way I would have recognized you is if I saw a man wheeling his mother into McDonalds to get a McFlurry.

sojoh - Yeah, I had a blast. I'm sure I'll return again next year. I bet I was probably within a few feet of you and Kerouac at some point but with all the people it was impossible to tell. The only food I had was a banana and a rose petal milk which were given to me. They give away food at the festival but I was too preoccupied with photo taking to take advantage of the freebies.

mich64 - Thanks!

[fumobici]

Sweet report. I especially enjoyed the videos, looks like a beautiful chaos.

[koloagirl]

Aloha!

Wonderful photos and the videos are great too - I left on the sound of the video and scrolled thru the pictures - it "almost" made me think I was there! What a vibrant, wonderful festival! Just beautiful pictures and commentary also!

;D
Janet

[Deleted]

Aug 28, 2011 19:38:09 GMT frenchmystiquetour said:

Kerouac - The only way I would have recognized you is if I saw a man wheeling his mother into McDonalds to get a McFlurry.

I didn't take her out after all -- it was too chilly about 14:00.

[bixaorellana]

What fun, and what a brilliant, full way of bringing the festival to us, FMT. I love the way you caught the lulls and empty spaces, along with the drama and crowds.

Do you all happen to know whether the people who mount this festival are mostly from the same part of India? Obviously, I cannot interpret the traditional clothing nor the signs on the buildings.

In the penultimate photo in Reply #3 -- the one with all the ladies carrying fire on their heads -- there appears to be smoke from a large fire in the background, where the lines of buildings converge. Was it indeed a fire, or just a cloud?

[planejane]

FM, Great pictures! So colorful and lively! Sorry I missed that! See you in a few weeks! Jane

[Deleted]

Bixa, this is mostly the Tamil community from the south of India and Sri Lanka. One indication is their dark complexion. North Indians have light skin.

[frenchmystiquetour]

fumo - Thanks. As you might imagine the chaos was better in person than the videos and I made sure I got right in the middle of it.

Janet - Thank you too. You might ask kerouac if there'll be any more interesting festivals like this when you come over soon. Thanks to his reminder last week I was at the festival today.

kerouac - Too bad. I really would have enjoyed sharing a McFlurry with you two.

Bixa - Kerouac answered your first question. I certainly wouldn't know the answer. And thankfully, that was just smoke from all the incense pots (I guess that's what they were) the women were carrying. As I mentioned earlier, this event has a high flammability factor so it's good the women kept their fires under control.

Jane - See you soon!

[Deleted]

Here is my own little video from today.

[frenchmystiquetour]

As much as I enjoyed being in the thick of things there were times when it was impossible to move one way or another and I was envious of those who could enjoy it from their apts., like yourself. Plus you get a different perspective.

[rikita]

looks very interesting... does that take place every year? maybe i should come to paris to see it sometime...

[hwinpp]

Three board members at the same festival and you don't arrange to meet?!?

Great thread, FMT.

I shudder when I see all those bare feet on the wet road though...

Bix, those look like southerners, as Jack has pointed out. I don't think Ganesha is worshipped that much in the north.

Altho' in the last series of pics there were some women wearing shalwaar khameez, something I associate more with the north than the south.

[sojoh]

Aug 29, 2011 8:07:00 GMT hwinpp said:

Three board members at the same festival and you don't arrange to meet?!?

Yeah, I'm still wondering why Kerouac didn't invite us up to his apartment for the view and some Indian food....or at least a McFlurry.

Just a hunch, but I would imagine that FMT and Kerouac were every bit as engrossed in taking photos of the festival as I was and that we would have just gotten in each other's way if we would have arranged to meet. I even lost my husband in the crowd a couple of times because I was in pursuit of a photo opp.

[auntieannie]

FMT... people in your pics! ;D

I must say you are right, the videos really allow for an understanding of the energy and noise and liveliness of the event. I now suffer from masala dosa craving. I will make some later this week, I think!

thanks for sharing all these colours and it must have been such fun!

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2011 8:57:19 GMT sojoh said:

Yeah, I'm still wondering why Kerouac didn't invite us up to his apartment for the view and some Indian food....or at least a McFlurry.

I made the horrible horrible mistake of inviting some people over to see it a number of years ago. Never again. Not only did they decide "oh, it runs from 11:00 to 15:00 so we can show up around 13:00 " -- which trapped me in my apartment waiting, but then they decided they just wanted to eat at my place and not even go down into the crowd. "Why bother?"

I was furious because I had very carefully explained the schedule and the interesting places like the Faubourg Saint Denis, but they just ignored it all. "Fashionably late Parisians."

[frenchmystiquetour]

rikita - It does take place every year but kerouac would know the dates better than I.

hwinpp - The streets were wet as they had been hosed (?and disinfected?) prior to the parade. Although I still don't think you'd ever catch me walking barefoot through the streets of Paris. I noticed some of the marchers were cheating and wearing socks, however.

annie - I decided to stray from my usual theme of desolation. Hope you weren't too traumatized.

[Deleted]

Actually, the streets are supposed to be sprinkled with saffron water. It would be much too expensive considering the distance, so I presume they just use curcuma like on the coconuts.

[auntieannie]

turmeric has an antiseptic effect if I am not mistaken (amongst many other beneficial effects). I would still bet they put disinfectant in the machine. curcuma/turmeric's yellow is a bugger to get rid of.