Seven years. That’s how long I have been in Mumbai, the city that never sleeps. Anytime of the night, you go out on the roads of this amusing city, you will always find it alive with some or the other activity. The city is beautiful, colorful and full of life. For every struggle, every sweat and every tear this city causes upon people, it also brings joys, color, dance, and music, especially during Ganapati festival.

The festival transforms this city. Everyone comes together to celebrate it. Pandals spring up at every lane, every nook, and corner. The elephant-deity adore these pandals in various sizes, all dressed up and hundreds of people line up to offer their prayers and get the blessing.

During these 11 days of Ganapati, I am sure thousands of pandals would be setting up in Mumbai and among all, the most popular and most visited pandal is that of Lalbaug cha Raja, the Ganapati pandal set up in the center of Mumbai in Lal Baug, a place in between Dadar and Parel. The pandal is more popular for the queue it attracts than anything else. I have read stories about people waiting for anywhere between 24-48 hours to finally have a darshan of not more than a minute. All these stories kept me at bay for all these years to go and visit the pandal. Also, I never truly felt like going there.

But 2014 is different. Somehow this year, I have come in touch with my religious side a lot more. After having been to Vaishno Devi in June and this time when Ganapati Utsav began, I just thought to myself that I’d go to Lal Baug cha Raja this year. And I did, on Friday, September 5^th, 2014. I found a company in Kranti and we decided that we will go early in the morning at around 3.30am to account for waiting in the queue and come back in time for the work next day.

Rain, Rain.. Go away!

First, we were adored by the rains. Heavy rains! It dampened our spirits so much that we were contemplating going back home while waiting at a bus stop. Kranti suggested that may be it’s a test. The universe is testing our spirit and resolve to go to Lal Baug. We let this thought sink in and decided that rain will not stop us from going to Lal Baug. And so we left, with rains pouring on us, occasionally halting at several Ganpati pandals to take shelter, mostly at the insistence of Kranti to save the two smartphones he always carries.

And the universe conspired

Drenched, we somehow reached Lal Baug and the rains miraculously stopped. Kranti and I then started looking for the queue to line up, wait and offer our prayers to Lord Ganesha. While we were confused as to where the queue begins, slowly the realization dawned upon us that there was NO queue.  We came across a lot of people, who asked us for money promising that we will get darshan in 5 minutes. Without paying any attention to them, we simply walked in and reached the pandal in straight 5 minutes anyway. And we spent good 15-20 minutes praying and admiring the huge and beautifully decorated statue of Lal Baug cha Raja. 

I will have a version of the story which probably not many will believe. You can call it pure luck or a divine miracle, but it's true. 

Visit to few more pandals

We came out smiling and reflecting upon our situation an hour back when we had almost given up coming here. No queue, no waiting, and peaceful darshan seemed such a beautiful reward.

After a few photographs of the lively atmosphere and some vada pavs, we decided to visit a few more pandals. In one of the pandals, we saw tickets being sold for Rs.20/- to avoid the queue and have a fast track entry. Kranti and I looked at each other criticized the system and with an air of confidence decided that we’ll stand in the queue because it’s our day and Lord Ganesha is happy with us and we’ll get a quick darshan. But the moment we saw the long queue, we both took our Rs.20 from our pockets and took the fast track route (I know, this is Hypocrisy!:P)

A panwala? A playwright?

Just when we were leaving, it started to rain again. We ran and stood under a pan shop. The owner of the shop, whose name I don't remember now unfortunately, had just opened the shop. In normal course of conversation, I got to know that he's an MSc. by education and writes plays on social inequality, rich-poor divide. He had a great sense of humour too. Interesting person to meet and talk to at 6.00am in the morning.

It stopped raining in sometime. I could see children coming out of their homes, ready to go to school. Little traffic had started to build up on the road. It kept drizzling though out our way back from Lal Baug but it never poured like it did while we were going there. Soon I could feel the gentle rays of early morning sun on my face and shine on the chrome of my motorcycle. It felt Like Lord Ganesha was quite happy with what we did to reach him, meet him and greet him that he finally gave us some sunshine.

By 7am, we were back to the warmth of our homes; satisfied and with lots of stories to tell our grandchildren.

P.S. This one is from 2014. I know that's the height of laziness but that's me. The next year, in 2015 we went again and Abhimanyu & Arthi joined us. Though there were no rains, but we did find a long queue and an interesting journey through the crowded roads of Mumbai to find food at 4 am in the morning. More on that later. ;)