Totter Potter, "ala" Govinda!

There's been a current in the air. I can hear far-off drum beats since morning. Any Indian knows that means a festival and definite excitement. Occasionally, loud, rowdy cheers waft in through my window although I cannot see the young boys (for that is what they sound like) who are so happy! Since noon, people have been going to their balconies and windows and peering down to see what's going on. A while back, some young boys and girls and uncle-auntys began to line the lane behind our house. I could tell something was about to happen.

This is Bombay, and today is Janmashtami. Need I say more by way of explanation?

Finally, a bunch of young men arrived in the lane and began chanting Goouuuuvindaaaa, Goouuupaaaalaaa, Goouuuuvindaaaa, Goouuupaaaalaaa. Then they began demanding water in this novel fashion:"V for water, V for water!"

Hmmm....anyway, this post isn't about the alphabet.

I had heard that the real show happens in more crowded, typically Maharashtrian areas. The boys who do the climbing and breaking are absolute pros, and I believe they are sometimes even insured against a fall resulting from a shaky human pyramid!

Still, I was rather excited to notice a pot strung up on a rope that went across the lane behind our house. So there was going to be action in that sleepy by-lane!!!

I wanted to see it all, properly. But I didn't want to run downstairs and risk missing the event. So I climbed shakily on to the kitchen counter for a better view as the youths assembled.

I needn't have worried. Since they were not pros, it took them a considerable while to get organised and manage the feat. Enough time for me to fetch my camera, even! Several permutations and combinations were attempted, and several falls were broken, just about.

As a thin group of spectators watched, a nimble-footed guy, who reminded me of Mowgli from The Jungle Book, darted up, using the others' elbows, thighs and shoulders as footrests, and in a swift move had reached the handi or pot suspended above him. He hung on to it for sometime, and then smashed it.

Bright red gulal came down in powdery gusts and streaked the team with scarlet. There were loud cheers, much clapping and everyone went home.

My little group of amateurs will certainly not make it to the news or to images of Mumbai on Janmashtami that will be splashed on newspapers tomorrow. I don't know if they got any money as a reward for their participation, as is the usual custom. But they seemed to enjoy themselves. And it is the spirit that counts. They lived Janmashtami for those few moments, and I got a window-seat to view it all from!