In India it would appear that almost every day is special. The Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Parsis, Jains, all the different religions of India divide up the weekdays and spread around the festive vibe until life becomes a haze of incense and puja (prayer), feasts and fasts and, best of all, dances. Last week, on the night before the full moon, we celebrated the final day of Ganesh’s birthday, a ten day festival during which nightly puja is observed and countless offerings presented to the numerous shrines set up around town (and of course the small shrines each household sets up). On the final day the puja reaches fever pitch and the worshipers are showered with powdered dyes and receive blessed food, before the clay statues are loaded into their cart, car, truck or (in our case) school bus, which will convey them to the river to break down.

Under the statues watchful gaze loud chants are uttered and the drums beat fast and infectiously.As a foreigner, theres little doubt that you’ll end up getting dragged into the chaos and, if you’re lucky (or otherwise, depending on your preference), it’s quite possible you’ll end up with a solo dance, surrounded by a circle of clapping, laughing schoolboys (or that could just be me). The tempo increases constantly till you’re chasing a beat so fast your feet seem barely to touch the ground and your heart is racing a million miles a minute. It’s in this crowd, under the clearest of star-filled skies, in the light of an almost perfect moon and the beams of the school bus which follows your dancing feet, that one feels the most alive. We pound the driveway in time with our shoulder jerks and head wobbles, till the dust creates a cloud too thick for the sky to be seen, and the air becomes muggy and dense. We are united by the beat which pounds in our heads and pulses through the ground from our synchronized stamping. Corny as it sounds, in that moment we are one, a hive mind. Our movements combined as, together, we experience the rush, the waves of adulation and exhausted exhilaration and we draw from the core an energy and excitement which sucks away all stress and fatigue, hunger and anger, in the best possible form of group therapy possible. We are India, a whole which is greater than the sum of the parts and everything else, especially time. fades away. When, the drums fade out and the bus rolls away, time remains absent and the connections forged linger for a moment. united by the immense satisfaction. Sated and sleepy we return to our rooms for the best nights sleep ever.