Noiseless and thoughtful celebration

With its rich cultural heritage, one and sometimes even two festivals are celebrated almost every other month in India. These festivals do bring people and communities together, but like everything else have a dark side as well.

Many of these festivals cause considerable noise, water, and air pollution. With people becoming increasingly aware of the environmental hazards, they have not only started using eco-friendly Ganpati idols and submerging them in artificial water bodies, but some have also started celebrating Ganpati noiselessly.

The Marine Drive Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal is one such. The residents of Marine Drive were much distressed by the noise pollution caused there.

Akash Raj Purohit, one of the organisers of Marine Drive Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal, says, “We started celebrating noiseless Ganpati around four years back. When we went to collect money for the mandal, many residents told us about the noise problem during Ganpati. It was then that we decided to celebrate noiselessly. We play light music only during bhajans.” On asking about the permissions needed, Purohit said, “You do need permission to set up a mandal, but one does not need permission to celebrate noiseless Ganpati. It is up to us how we celebrate Ganpati.”

Nikhil Banker, a resident of Marine Drive and a part of the Marine Drive Residents Action group, said, “There is no religion in the world which preaches us to make noise while celebrating a festival; we, human beings, have started this noisy celebration. It is as though mandals compete with each other to make the most noise. The constant beating of drums and the music system can be quite traumatising. I have noticed that even if there are just two people in the mandal, the music system keeps blaring out loud music.

A lot of youngsters are taking interest in this campaign and are really involved in it. They have been taking care of the arrangements in a very efficient way.” Banker also said, “As it is life in Mumbai is fast-paced, on top of that the economy is going down at this time, residents tend to be stressed out. On top of that if you put on loud music 24 hours for 10 days, it really gets under the skin of the people, and thus the Marine Drive Residents Action group started this campaign.”

He also mentioned how supportive the police were. “We have received full support from the police. It is not that the authorities are always at fault; sometimes we too make mistakes. If we criticise them, then we should praise them too when they do their job,” he added.

Neighbourliness and thoughtfulness has made this peaceful celebration of Ganpati a riding success.