Ganesh Visarjan

Today marked the end of Ganesh Chaturthi, the Hindu festival of the god Ganesh (the famous one with an elephant head). It's called Ganesh Visarjan and was celebrated on campus, first with a priest singing various hymns in front of a Ganesh statue outside the mess; this was then followed by a procession around campus, accompanied by drums and dancing. For reasons of tempo we then took a number of rickshaws to the Sabarmati River to immerse the statue and say farewell to it. We were, though, not the only ones. A number of similar processions were spotted on the way and the river bank was covered in people. Many were children (exceptionally happy ones) and apparently the funniest thing in the world is to have your picture taken by a Westerner. We were happy to comply.

Of course, the Swedish election doesn't go unnoticed here. Charlotte and I will have a fun all-nighter clicking the refresh button on various Swedish news sites, while eating biscuits.