UNITED STATES, September 23, 2024 (RNS, by Khyati Y Joshi): Outside my fourth-floor window, the sounds of devotional chanting, lively music and drum beats echoed in the narrow street below. It was Ganesh Chaturthi, a 10-day Hindu festival that earlier this month celebrated the birth of Ganesha, the beloved elephant-headed God known as the remover of obstacles. As a second-generation Indian American Hindu, this was the first time I had the opportunity to immerse myself in this celebration in India. Statues of Ganesha were on display throughout the neighborhoods and markets of Mumbai, each one a unique masterpiece of artistic expression–some only a foot or two tall, while others towered above me when I walked by. As the festival began, families and neighbors gathered to perform the ceremonial puja, offering prayers, flowers and sweets to the vividly decorated statues that take center stage in their homes and in the neighborhood. By the second day of the festival, families and neighbors carried Ganeshas in the back of their SUVs and hatchback cars, on vegetable carts and parade floats adorned with flowers, heading toward the sea.

This year, it’s not just Ganesha who’s immersed. It’s me, too. As a member of the global Hindu diaspora, this is the first September I’ve ever spent in India — a blessing owed to my academic sabbatical. To come to a place where the practice of my faith is ubiquitous is an unfamiliar immersion. As a second-generation Indian American Hindu, worship is something separate from the rest of life. Hindu practice means going to a particular space — the temple in my town, or the altar I keep in my home — then returning to the space of “real life” where my faith is invisible. Even the few open-air worship spaces created during Ganesh Chaturthi, like Jersey City’s pandal (pavilion) with its 8-foot-tall Ganesh, are destinations that must be sought out. In the US, boundaries between sacred and everyday spaces are well-defined, but in India, for Hindus, religion comes to you.

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https://religionnews.com/2024/09/20/an-american-hindu-encounters-ganesh-chathurthi-in-india/

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