A few years ago, I dragged my friend who lives in Worli to Siddhi Vinayak temple. My family had a mannat (vendidal) to complete--an offering of many coconuts--and I was the courier. She had rarely been to this place that was an integral part of my childhood.
I must have been four or five, maybe a little older, when my father learned about the temple. Many Sundays were spent driving to the temple in the morning from Colaba, having a vadai breakfast after that and driving back.
I remember that Siddhi Vinayak distinctly. It was a small neighbourhood temple with a shaktishali Ganapati. We would first stop at a tree with a Hanuman on the way in (or out? I was really very young then!). The temple itself was really small, with just enough space for a single file circumambulation. I remember the light in that little courtyard, dappled with sunlight and the shadows of leaves from what must have been the sthalavriksha. The air was both warm and cool in that Bombay way--yes, I do remember those details.
I want to say we went every Sunday but that is probably not correct. We went often enough that it was a preferred Sunday routine for me. Sometimes we drove back by the Portuguese Church which continues to fascinate me. (The vadais remain a draw, as well.) But it was hard not to love this little temple even when you were pretty much holding someone's hand and dragging along to keep pace.
Then my Mama, never perfectly healthy, became seriously ill, far away in New York. My father would wake up on Tuesdays when it was still dark, bathe and start walking to Prabhadevi. He would return at around 8. I don't know how many weeks he did this. Ganesha did help. He ended the pain and the suffering and gave my Mama peace. In exchange, he gave us a great grief that we still feel after decades. This was 1973.
We continued to visit the temple but less and less frequently as my parents' responsibilities grew and Sundays became days to finish secondary school homework. As teenagers, my sister and I developed our own routines--and politics. I went through a very long phase of questioning and not-believing because I was still questioning, and then I thought temples don't matter--in a way, I still think that.
In those years, the little temple became richer and more powerful as people invested their faith. My mother (and great-grandfather) explained temples and idols this way to me: It's not the idol. It's not the space. It's not the architecture. It's the energy. Not intrinsic to anything physical but brought in and invested there by hundreds and thousands who believe. They believe it is there, and by their belief, it becomes real. By the belief of hundreds of thousands (and their offerings), the little Siddhi Vinayak temple acquired layer after later, shell after shell, structure after structure, to become this grand palace we see today. The sanctum too grew more splendid and the worshippers more celebrated. Could Siddhi Vinayak have time for simple people like us who knew him way back when?
In my heart, though, he is still that little guy I visited when I was a little girl. And so I know he listens to me. In a crisis, I think of him. He and my other Bombay people--Mahalakshmi, Mumbadevi, Haji Ali (whom I have never visited), St. Joseph from my school church, Mary from the Mahim Church, the Hanuman on Colaba Causeway... this is my A-Team in bad times (as if they were separate from other such repositories of energy and faith who are here and everywhere). And as they belong to me, so I belong to Bombay/Mumbai.
On my own journey, I have followed my questions, then my need, then my faith in other people's faith and then my own experiences to the point where I do go to temples without coercion. On my time, in my way, with whatever ritual my heart makes up for that moment on that day. But some temples you carry within you. Siddhi Vinayak is one of them for me.
***
On this Ganesh Chaturti, I wish for:
No obstacles to non-violence.
No obstacles to peace.
No obstacles to justice.
No obstacles to compassion.
No obstacles to learning.
No obstacles to understanding.
No obstacles.
For everyone.
***
For me, I write this blogpost as a prayer. Let me be able to reclaim enough health and sanity, enough peace of mind, to be able to be calm and compassionate, creative and constructive. Let me travel inwards and outwards at once, learning and teaching along the way. No obstacles.
***
PS: Do I believe that the offerings determine outcomes? Of course not. I think however that the time and attention they make you divert from your self-centered anxiety may help your morale. (For me, writing is an offering that transforms my energy.) If you make a charitable offering, then noticing other people's suffering puts yours in perspective. In the moment you make the promise, you give yourself a little hope--that tomorrow will dawn, better, because you have a promise to keep. It re-commits you to something concrete. And like my father, walking to Prabhadevi at the crack of dawn, it mitigates your helplessness in the face of something beyond your control--at least I can walk, at least I can do this. That's good enough, I think. We do the best we can.
