Ganpati Festival in Tokyo

Ganpati Festival always excited me, especially after coming to Mumbai. I don’t know why and also can’t figure out any rational behind it…

Somehow I always wanted to see and to be part of Ganpati Puja & Visarjan; and this wish came true in Tokyo. I couldn’t have imagined, even in my distant dreams, that I would get such a chance to be part of Ganpati Puja in Tokyo; when I didn’t get any in Mumbai.

How it started? One day, Tarun-san said that he’ll organise Ganpati puja this year, in his house. I don’t know how serious he was at that time. But his wife, Rakhi insisted that once he committed, he should definitely keep Ganpati. And this was the beginning…

Finding a Ganpati Idol: Now the question was how to get a Ganpati Idol, which should be made of clay / mud. Available options were to get one from India through courier or to search in Tokyo itself. The easiest option would have been to get from India, but the risk associated with it was that courier company wasn’t ready to give any guarantee for safety of idol. So Tarun decided to first search in Tokyo. Later he and I went to a Japanese store selling Indian handicrafts and believe-it-or-not we found the Idol in the 1^st attempt itself. So first milestone was achieved…

Implementation: 11th September 2010, the Ganesh Chaturthi day. Preparations began from morning, house cleaning and decorations were done, stage was set and the wait was only for Ganpati to come.

Around 3:45 pm JST puja started. Ganpati sthapana was done with Panditji reciting Mantra over a VOIP call, from India. Later our own pandits, Hemant & Tarun read few more mantras from Internet and Puja was completed. During Aarti, “Jai Dev Jai Dev” and “Jai Ganesh Jai Ganesh Jai Ganesh Deva” were played on YouTube. Later in the evening, we saw live Puja in Tarun Mumbai’s home, participated in Aarti and recited Ganpati Morya, over a web-conference call.

The delicious Prasad / Bhog were prepared by Manu Bhabhi; it included Modak, Besan Laddu, Gari ke Laddu, etc. For lunch and dinner, we had Poori Sabji, Kachori Damaloo and Chole Poori, prepared by Manu Bhabhi & Tarun; other significant contributors were Hemant, Puneet and Puran.

Night was the time when everyone was tired and feeling sleepy too, but someone needs to be awake since Diya should continue glowing. So we started playing cards to pass time; we also slept but in shifts of few hours each.

Next morning the series of Puja, Aarti and Bhog started again and continued till evening. After doing 5 Aartis and Bhogs in one and a half days, time came to say goodbye to Ganesh Ji, that is, Visarjan.

Tarun’s family, from India, participated in pre-Visarjan Puja through a web conference. Then we did a small Puja on the doorstep of Tarun’s house and also at the canal / river side. Later in midst of slogans of Ganpati Bappa Moriya, Ganpati had to be submerged in water. Two days of festivities came to an end…

An unforgettable weekend passed with Ganpati’s bhajan in the background, doing preparations & Puja, time pass and playing cards. People who participated in this Puja were Tarun, Puneet, Manu Bhabhi, Krunal, DevD, Hemant, Puran and I.

Thanks to Tarun-san for organising the Ganesh Puja at his home…

Ganpati Bappa Moriya,

Pudhchya Varshi Lavkaryaa !!!

A month in Japan

Recently I completed a month in Japan, so thought of sharing some of my experiences and observations with you all. These experiences couldn’t be new to you but were definitely new to me or excited me in some manner.

• Apartment: The first strange experience was when I reached B-Site (my accommodation) in Tokyo. I expected that atleast a guard or front desk person would be there; but to my surprise no one was present in the building for supervision. Everything was self managed from collecting the keys to finding the room, etc. The apartment was compact but nice studio type apartment; it had almost all the necessary items required by an individual. In fact, till date I haven’t seen any guard standing outside any residential building.

• Toilet: Just to inform my readers, after experimenting for few days and watching 3 videos on YouTube, I came to know, how to use Japanese Toilets (commode) properly. So all those, who are planning to come, my suggestion is kindly watch those videos online, it would be of great help.

• People: First day in the city and lost my way from station to my apartment. I was trying to confirm the correct route from people, who didn’t understand a single word of mine. And vice versa, I too didn’t understand a single direction from them. Finally managed to reach the apartment in an hour, which was hardly at a distance of 10 minute walk. But Japanese people are really very helpful, even they don’t understand your language, they’ll try to help you as much as they can. Once I went to a bookstore and wasn’t able to find the English books section, so asked at the counter. The lady at the counter went with me, almost to the other corner of the store to show me the book section. Unlike India, people here aren’t required to know English language in order to succeed in their respective career.

• Juices: Another strange thing which I experienced is that a small bottle of mineral water is costlier than 1 liter tetra-pack of fruit juices. Even 1.5 liter bottle of cold drink is costlier than juice packs.

• Sewage Bill: Recently came to know that we need to pay sewage bill also with water bill. The authorities calculate the amount of wastage done by every household and then bill accordingly. Just imagine, if someone has loose motion then he’ll not increase his medical expenses but also his sewage bill; so please take care.

• Travelling: According to me, the most common mode of communication is Tokyo would be trains followed by bicycle. The local train network here is very different from what we have in Mumbai. In Mumbai all trains move from North to South or vice-versa; but here there is no. of different train routes and that cover almost the entire Tokyo.

Like others, I too drove a cycle for going to a friend’s place; it was amazing as I was riding a bicycle atleast after a decade. Although here there are rules for a cycle driver; rules like: driver should carry the registration papers for that cycle, the cycle should have a headlight, and you can’t park a cycle in No Parking zone else they’ll tow it.

Here people walking on foot get preference over the car owners; policeman will stop the cars and let the people walk. First time in my life, I saw the proper use of the Zebra Crossings; unlike India, here they’re very effective and convenient too.

• Shopping: On my way back from my friend’s place, I shopped for groceries (mainly vegetable & fruits) at 3:00 am in the morning; and believe me, I wasn’t the only customer at that shop. In India, I couldn’t have imagined buying potatoes or onions at 3 in the morning.

• Garbage: Few days ago, I went to the basement of my building for dumping the garbage. The garbage room was so huge that I can’t even describe, it was definitely 4-5 times bigger than our flat. Here normally people throw garbage in 2 different containers, one for combustible items and other one for non-combustible items.

I’ll keep adding more items to the above list, as and when I find something interesting enough…