The procession itself gave one the impression of a complex crossover between New Year's, the Macy's Day parade and what I can only imagine Woodstock would have been like if there had been more Indians and less "free love." The marchers wind down a major thoroughfare in Pune known as Laxmi Road, known for its shopping and the strange phenomenon that prompts Westerners to pay four times the actual price of a good and still think they got a good deal. On procession day though, the pirates of Pune close up shop and the street floods with people, to the point that we had to move in a twenty-person long conga line to make any progress up or down the street. While the original plan had been to camp out on the second floor of a restaurant owned by the mother of one of our Indian buddies, by the time we arrived the place had become so jam packed with patrons that only two members of our group could go up at a time, and still might not be able to see. This left the rest of us to settle for street level viewing, which turned out to be so bad thanks to the blessedly poor prevalence of the tall gene among Indians.
As the pictures hopefully demonstrate, the part of the parade that we got a see consisted predominantly of musicians, specifically drummers, and even more specifically drummers who like to play load, which, to be fair, basically goes without saying. The drummer bands were essentially split into three parts, the biggest section being bass drummers who had massive drums strapped around their stomach (they occasionally swung these around while playing and I can only imagine how they avoided severe whip lash each and every time). The second smaller section consisted of what were basically snare drummers, with one lead performer (resident baller of the group) playing a different rhythm every other 4 counts and the rest providing a echo. Finally there were one or two "performers" whose instructions I can only hazard to guess were "Here are some hammers-now continue to wail on this circular piece of metal as hard as humanly possible until otherwise notified." Needless to say this was not an event for the faint of eardrums. Occasionally the bands were accompanied by flag bearers carrying tall poles and moving in time with the drumming. I found these guys particularly exciting because half the time I could only see the flags and not the bearers, which gave me the distinct impression of watching a medieval army march of some kind.
After a little while of just standing on the sidewalk watching the parade go by, we realized that the pace of the marchers had gotten progressively slower until finally the parade had basically come to a complete halt. No one seemed perturbed by this, and the drummers kept on drumming, but none of us could figure out why everything had stopped. Then another Alliance student realized that a large number of former spectators were now participants and dancing in the middle of the parade with the drummers. Seeing as absolutely no one had stepped in to stop them, we soon determined that this was just another part of the Ganpati experience, and after clearing it with an Indian buddy we decided to become a part of it! First only a few of us, but then everyone, piled over the barriers separating sidewalk from street and joined in the revelry taking place in the middle of the parade. Fortunately, the Indians already getting their street dancing on were happy to have us and eagerly invited us to dance with them. Being young, impressionable Americans looking to have a good time we were only too happy to oblige. The drummers were spectacular and really kept the excitement level up despite the parade remaining at a standstill. Eventually people started getting hoisted on to other peoples' shoulders as part of the general ecstasy/madness, and after a failed attempt at getting on my friend Taylor's shoulders (though the reverse worked fine as the pictures attest) an eager middle-aged Indian man stepped in to provide a helping hand, or in this case set of shoulders. I'll admit to being a little skeptical of getting on the shoulder's of a man I had never met, let alone speak English to, but with a more than helpful boost from those around me, next thing I knew there I was above the crowd. While terrifying is probably the first word that comes to mind on reflection of my time up there, it was also a ton of fun and hugely exhilerating- definitely recommened for the next time you find yourself in a parade in a foreign land with access to a willing pair of unknown shoulders.
