Sleepless in Marredpally

I haven’t slept all night. Neither last night nor the 7 nights preceeding that one. I am so tired. Yawwwn. This makes me lethargic, weak, and snappy. A dog needs to get all the sleep he can. That’s when we dream of a better world for all.

So, you may ask, what’s keeping me awake? It’s a no brainer, really. Have’nt you seen or rather HEARD the louder- than -my -ears can –handle music, drums, the bright lights that are constantly going past our house every evening? Big trucks with people covered with pink and blue colour, loudspeakers, big colourful and shiny statues of an elephant being driven by our house? And for some reason they always stop just outside our house and light those darned crackers, bombs really as far as I am concerned. Just when I think the worst is over, another round of music, drums and lights starts to go by. This goes on till early morning, and every single night in the last week.

Mum says that is the Ganesha processions being taken out for immersion in the lakes. She says actually they are supposed to go every other day for a 10 day period, but people either do not know or simply do not care, and 'party' whenever they want to. Maybe it depends on when they can rent the trucks and lights and drums she says. Basically its now more a 'party thing' rather than a religious event she says.

She is also tired and sleepy, poor mum. Having to open the door for me every few hours because I cant sleep and need to be with her [which is why I almost scratch the door down] and having to put up with the same noise cant be fun for her too.

She was telling G and Ria that this year instead of having lesser idols and smaller ones [ which , according to her, is much needed to save the planet and the lakes] there seem to be many more plaster idols and more processions. So instead of trying to improve our environment, this government is helping to run it to the ground by giving more permissions for Ganeshas, and by not implementing the eco-friendly rule where all idols should be soluble in water etc, they are causing grievous harm to the lakes of this city.

On the other hand they are spending millions of rupees to plant trees for an upcoming world conference on Biodiversity [ don’t ask me what that means] and trying to quickly repair the roads and potholes before foreigners see what a mess we live in, and not to forget raising the electric poles and cutting off branches which come in the way of the Ganesha processions!

Its like cutting off their own hands to spite their faces, only they seem to not mind it one bit.

Forget about all that. What about the noise pollution. And what about all the electricity that is wasted during these processions, for which we have to pay by going through long power cuts? So long that the battery also died yesterday! And most importantly What about my ear drums? And those of my fellow 4 legged creatures who must be surely suffering like me these 10 days?

Don’t ask me anything. I need all the forty winks I can get before the next one starts.