Happy Ganpati!

3 hours later, red dust still clings to my skin. I can see the slight shift of tint on my arms, the reddening of my ear-tips, the rosy hue creeping along my hairline, the crimson splash at the small of my back. Remnants of this morning’s festivities.

It started at around 9 am. A group of us left the apartment building to help bring the Ganesh statue back from the artisan’s shop. My neighbor insisted I go with them – “to take part” he said. So it was shoes off and hop in the truck – off we go! We get it – a huge, gorgeous, regal display of opulence – and it is back in the truck again – crying out chants of “Ganpati! Moria!” Two young girls are throwing rice over the sculpture as as drive back. “Didi!” one girl calls out to me, holding out a palmful of rice. I accept and join the girls.

Soon we stop – “Come! Dance!” my neighbor says with a grin. We pour out of the truck and the drums light with thunder. Tikatitikatitikatiktika toktoktoktoktikatikatitikatitikatitik – onwards the drums roll out their ecstatic beats as the boy release themselves to the rhythm — wild, untamed, limbs free to the energy. Only the boys. But the energy is contagious and soon the girls are dancing by the boys—me too, the girls bring me in, made me dance, wanted me to dance—ours a smaller circle than the boys, but still vibrant, feet catching the pulse, flows up to arms, let it carry us up, up. Even old women join us.

The red. It is swirling thick. Handfuls hurled through the throng. We dance in a haze, a flurry of crimson laughter. Friends slap fistfuls in each other’s hair. Some mercilessly pound the bystanders. A passing rickshaw driver is hit. Dancers, spectators, passers-by – no one can escaper the red. Not even the white Christian foreigner. All are called to this madness. All.

By the end I feel giddy, glorious, and exhausted. And utterly, completely, undeniably carpeted in red. After arti (prayer) we are allowed to shower. Stripping off my clothes, I see clothes are no barrier to the little red demons. Even my breasts are thoroughly seeped in the bloody hue. From head to toe, the red has ravaged my body. I take pictures. I want to remember this—the dancing, the energy, the rhythm: the red, red the passion, red the frenzy, red the one energy, the one color—no brown, no white – only red. For one brief moment, we’re all red.