Two years ago, Sudheendra Kulkarni, the Belgaum-born, Kannada-speaking IITian-journalist who became an advisor to both Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lalchand Kishinchand Advani before leaving the BJP last week, wrote these lovely lines in the Indian Express:
“One way of understanding India is to understand our festivals. They tell us about India’s civilisational continuity… Each of our festivals represent mythology’s leap into modern times, an epic’s entry into our lives.
“Our festivals tell us about the importance of thanksgiving to the Creator. They tell us how to discover happiness, harmony and life’s meaning in ourselves and in our relationship with others, with nature, with the cosmos.”
Looking at this picture of workers of the Brihan Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) cleaning a pond inside Ulsoor Lake of the excesses of Ganesha Habba, in Bangalore on Wednesday, you wonder.
About our civilisational continuity.
About our leap into modern times.
About how we say thanks to the Creator.
About how we relate with nature.
About, well, everything.
Photograph: Karnataka Photo News
churumuri 
You dumb congress kadlekai seppes……….. u r so so blind does that look like lord ganesha?? thats is BBMP workers cleaning the tank after the dasara habba were the shakti devate is invoked. This is Kali mata. The bengali association does durga pooja near halasoor lake every year and immerse the idol. The caricature in the front is that of durga ma’s lion and the what the workers are holding is that if durga mate.
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When did the ritual of dumping Ganesha and Durga in water started?
I guess, they started putting them in lakes and rivers so that no human feet will trample on them.
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Sudheendhra Kulkarani is just a textbook intellectual who does not understand Real India.
In Real India, we leave a trail of hazardous smoke and filth filled streets and ear shattering noise and several thousand third degree burn cases every year during Diwali.
Happiness? Harmony? Thanksgiving?
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People in India are just dumb. Even after having numerous festivals to spoil the environment in countless ways, we keep adding Kannada Rajyothsava and like, ‘N’ Number of birthdays and so on to make it more worst place to live after. All buntings, posters, banners, flags pollute environment. Deepavali, Dusshera and Ganesh festivals are the nuisance to nature. When will we be environment friendly, environment aware and savers of the environment?
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Although celebrating festivals in public was started with good intention (building good bondage in society), it has become a public nuisance now. Most of these public celebrations are organized by local goonda’s (or small local political party leaders), demanding money from public, then disturbing till late night with high volume archestra event, then blocking traffic in name of procession.
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I really hope churumuri will publish a similar photo on the state of our parks ( esp Cubbon and Lalbagh) post an impending festival of our Brethren
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Every year around Ganesha festival, guys like Sudheendra Kulkarni pop up who whine about the idol immersion. They should take some action rather than just action rather than whine about it.
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There is no cure to a lack of civic sense but ourselves. But how can we expect that to happen with our ever-growing population, many of whom do not have basic necessities like nutritious food, enough space to live in and access to health-care? Forget public spaces in Indian cities, they will go to dogs.
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