Let me start with the sparse and go up to the time where all i can see is people. I mean the beach, the sand and the sea which is supposed to be Water and not Humanity. The weekends are packed, and from as far back as I can remember, we would never go to the beach on a Sunday. "its a sunday!!" we would exclaim and panic if our guests wanted to "see the sea" on that day.
I have never been able to figure out, why women don their finest while visiting the beach, Sarees of the colour, which could put the sun god to shame. Why? when u know your enamoured spouse is going to drag a screaming you into the water, and splash it all over you, and then proceed to take pictures of you, wringing your saree dry, and ask another unfortunate soul to stop his jogging and take one with his arm around your drooping sodden shoulders. Why would you wear the saree you wore for your own wedding???
Then one level worst is the summer vacations, for which mercifully we were out for 2 weeks and the remaining went along, waiting for high tide days, when people would refrain from majorly long picnics. Then is Ganpati visarjan. Those days are filled with men and women dancing with abandon. Now if it was a dance of joy and godly love i would sincerly surrender the beach to them without a single angry word. But these nuts, they dance to film songs, in stupor, drunk on alcohol and high on drugs. These are the elements which leave behind headless trunks of the elephant god, only to be sweeped away by the garbage van the next day. Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do!
The worst day is the day of the CHATPOOJA. That day , the entire UP and BIHARI population surface and fill the beach.. that day is the day which i call the SEA OF HUMANITY.
This is THE festival. About 15 days after Diwali. And I am ready to swear on my cycles, one cannot see sand. All you can see is - red , orange, yellow, red, and another shade of red. and dazzling gold. AND the green is huge stumps of banana leaf, stuck on the poor sand. The only black one can see is the heads of the men. Women are covered from head to toe in red, orange, yellow......
Women light diyas, helpless flapping their hands in supersticious agony when the wind blows it out. But obviously, on Chat Pooja even the wind is supposed to desist this silly behavious of blowing out diyas! Ridiculoulsy careless, this wind!
On all high tide days, the water thrashes on the sand and the sand starts piling up and one can see a complete demarkation between two areas of the beach, one about 3 feet higher than the other. But on Chat pooja, the sea of humanity does the work of nature. The sheer number of people trampling the beach on that day, level the sands for the next full year.
For the rape of the beach on this day, I have a immense dislike towards Shatrughan Sinha. The Bihari actor, who did this Karmic deed for his brethren.
Last Chatpooja's fashion was the "Phataphat" saree. !!!
If you have grown up in a non posh school in Mumbai, you have definately eaten phataphat. It is jerragoli (yum !) in a packet the color of muddied Shiv Sena flag, hanging limply outisde a mill, closed for the past 12 years.: and black round balls (representing the jeeragoli) printed on the muddy orange.
Atleast 25 of the 40 women I caught sight at first glimpse had gone for this latest trend. At that time i admired them, for they carried on without any grudge towards the other woman copying her fashion statement. Had this same thing happend with some of our upper class women, .. some would have running sobbing into loos, some shreiking back home in anger, and few would have got down to the nasties and torn each others' clothes off!
I have never been able to figure out, why women don their finest while visiting the beach, Sarees of the colour, which could put the sun god to shame. Why? when u know your enamoured spouse is going to drag a screaming you into the water, and splash it all over you, and then proceed to take pictures of you, wringing your saree dry, and ask another unfortunate soul to stop his jogging and take one with his arm around your drooping sodden shoulders. Why would you wear the saree you wore for your own wedding???
Then one level worst is the summer vacations, for which mercifully we were out for 2 weeks and the remaining went along, waiting for high tide days, when people would refrain from majorly long picnics. Then is Ganpati visarjan. Those days are filled with men and women dancing with abandon. Now if it was a dance of joy and godly love i would sincerly surrender the beach to them without a single angry word. But these nuts, they dance to film songs, in stupor, drunk on alcohol and high on drugs. These are the elements which leave behind headless trunks of the elephant god, only to be sweeped away by the garbage van the next day. Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do!
The worst day is the day of the CHATPOOJA. That day , the entire UP and BIHARI population surface and fill the beach.. that day is the day which i call the SEA OF HUMANITY.
This is THE festival. About 15 days after Diwali. And I am ready to swear on my cycles, one cannot see sand. All you can see is - red , orange, yellow, red, and another shade of red. and dazzling gold. AND the green is huge stumps of banana leaf, stuck on the poor sand. The only black one can see is the heads of the men. Women are covered from head to toe in red, orange, yellow......
Women light diyas, helpless flapping their hands in supersticious agony when the wind blows it out. But obviously, on Chat Pooja even the wind is supposed to desist this silly behavious of blowing out diyas! Ridiculoulsy careless, this wind!
On all high tide days, the water thrashes on the sand and the sand starts piling up and one can see a complete demarkation between two areas of the beach, one about 3 feet higher than the other. But on Chat pooja, the sea of humanity does the work of nature. The sheer number of people trampling the beach on that day, level the sands for the next full year.
For the rape of the beach on this day, I have a immense dislike towards Shatrughan Sinha. The Bihari actor, who did this Karmic deed for his brethren.
Last Chatpooja's fashion was the "Phataphat" saree. !!!
If you have grown up in a non posh school in Mumbai, you have definately eaten phataphat. It is jerragoli (yum !) in a packet the color of muddied Shiv Sena flag, hanging limply outisde a mill, closed for the past 12 years.: and black round balls (representing the jeeragoli) printed on the muddy orange.
Atleast 25 of the 40 women I caught sight at first glimpse had gone for this latest trend. At that time i admired them, for they carried on without any grudge towards the other woman copying her fashion statement. Had this same thing happend with some of our upper class women, .. some would have running sobbing into loos, some shreiking back home in anger, and few would have got down to the nasties and torn each others' clothes off!
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