The surest sign of a degenerating culture is the amount of noise – absolute – with no sense of rythmn, plain utter boring beats that I have been hearing since I was seven, and disgraceful dancing that occurs on what is proudly called our most secular of festivals, for our most universal of Gods. The noise increases every year, and the utter shamelessness with which the ‘pandals’ – enclosures for the idol, are decorated with advertisements and cutouts dwarfing the idol itself makes me cringe. There is no room left for Ganesh in this festival. It is as loud as a reality show, and almost as meaningless. Its high time we started keeping God to ourselves and stop blocking roads with his inflated likenesses.
