Just... wow.

Last night was perhaps the craziest and most surreal night of my life. But I'll get back to that.

As I've mentioned in this blog before, these past ten days or so have been Ganpati (I found out I've been spelling it wrong... who knew), Ganesh's festival that is celebrated here in Maharasthra. Almost every home keeps a statue of Ganesha in their homes that is given offerings every night of the festival. Until now, this festival for me has focused mainly on my homestay family and their family around the area. But last night was the crux, the absolute climax, of the whole festival.

We've heard people talking about a "procession," the past few days, but as per India, no one ever really explained what that meant. They also said that because of Swine Flu, the "procession" would be much smaller than in previous years, about 50% of the normal crowd. We had absolutely no idea what, exactly, we were getting ourselves into. Yesterday started out normal enough, with Marathi class, but after that we were all heading out to my friend Allison's house, which is located about a block off of Laxmi (Lockshmee) Rd., a major drag through town. We kept trying to catch a rickshaw to take us, but every time they refused and told us that Laxmi Rd was closed and they wouldn't go near it. So, we decided to walk. As we walked we came across a decent sized crowd, walking around a huge Ganpati statue, pulling it along with a truck like a float in a parade and everyone playing drums as they pulled it along. Well, okay.

By the time we made it to Allison's and ate lunch, it was clear that this was going to be quite the party. For reference, as it turns out, "procession" in India refers to 1 million people +, dancing and partying in the streets while pulling giant Ganpati statues along behind them. And this was smaller than previous years. I was already overwhelmed in mid-Afternoon on our first trek out. We got pulled into the crowd to dance in the middle of a huge group of Indians, jumping and pushing and having the time of their life to the beat of the most amazing drums I've ever heard. The girls were mostly pulled into a group of kids and women dancing nearer to the front of the parade, where we ended up surrounded by trumpeteers and drummers pounding out a beat like nothing I've ever heard before. The beat dropped like a hip-hop song, but after a few seconds picked up and was suddenly Indian again, and everyone would start dancing. It started to rain and everyone was dripping wet and splashing in puddles in the middle of the street. We stopped to dance in the middle of one of the biggest bridges in Pune, closed to traffic for the festival. Soon we had a huge audience watching us dance with the Indian girls, mostly guys, completely circling the entire area. The dancing was incredibly exhilarating and I had an amazing time. The girls were so happy and excited to have us there celebrating with them, I think everyone felt a flash of what it must feel like to be a celebrity.

After a while though, we realized that we had lost half our group. Most of the guys and one girl, Liz, had gotten pulled back further in the procession to dance with more of the men. Our friend Aaron had missed the first part of the procession to go to the doctor and was trying to find us again, but he kept getting pulled into the middle of similar dance parties... because there were probably several hundred of these giant Ganpati statues all over the city, and every single one of them was making its way down to the river, where traditionally all the Ganpati statues are released into the river to float away (or sink and cause a lot of pollution, as it were). For years, this practice caused a lot of pollution in the drinking water of thousands in Maharasthra, and now some environmental groups are "fishing" for Ganesh the weekend after the festival ends so that they can keep the drinking water cleaner.

Anyway. After we had re-assembled our group, we decided to head back to Allison's for a few hours of much-needed rest after about two hours of solid dancing with strangers. We decided to head out a few more times just to see what the party was like as it progressed. I never expected anything like it. The streets were crowded with dancers and specatators, and as it got dark, the Ganesh statues got bigger and bigger and soon they were lit up in all sorts of colors and each had a theme: I imagine this as an Indian sort of Mardi Gras, each Ganesh more and more fantastic than the last. And each with a bigger and bigger group of people dancing and celebrating and moving with the Ganesh, down to the river. Each of the parties had it's own flavor, based largely on the type of Ganesh. There were more traditional ones with long strings of Christmas lights and flowers, and there were ones with all sorts of decorations--one that was decorated just like a Mardi Gras float with green and purple and gold decorations; one that was in the middle of an Egyptian scene, complete with Sphynx; strangely, the one with the biggest crowd had the smallest Ganpati, in the middle of a huge decorative platform for it. It turned out that this "procession," was a bit like a parade, where the spectators are the ones who make the parade worth coming to--though the Ganpati statues themselves were gorgeous, it was more interesting to watch the huge groups of people dancing and jumping with the music.

Everywhere we went, we were celebrities. We were in the English paper yesterday, an article about American students getting ready for the festival. Our picture was featured and we were recognized several times. But the rest of the time, I think it was just because we were Americans, ready and willing to dance with everyone we met. Only every time we would enter a crowd, a huuuge circle would fill out around us, hundreds of people stopping their own party to watch US. Sometimes a few men would jump in the circle and get close to us girls, and they would instantly get pulled away by cops or other spectators. The problem was not that most of them got too close, it was simply the staring! I have had a hard time adjusting to getting stared at, but last night was too much for me.

The later it got, the more the crowd was concentrated and difficult to move in, and the more intense it became when we would go somewhere. As the minutes ticked by, bigger and bigger crowds would form around us whenever we did anything--including our stop for water at a stall, we were almost instantly surrounded by about 50 guys just watching us, apparently fascinated. I had enough. I felt awkward being stared at all the time, so my friends Garrett, Sydney and I went back to Allison's place around midnight. The rest of the group returned about an hour later. The party, however, lasted all night and into this morning, loud techno music and drumbeats drifting through the windows long after I wanted to be asleep.

I cannot possibly imagine this party 50% bigger. I also think I might be able to imagine a million people now.