Consumer Voice ::Ganesh Chaturthi!

It is time to put our festivals in the recycle mode!

We have been getting a lot of response to our Janamashtami posting, drawing attention to reinventing Krishna as a green icon. Actually it is not us but the great structure of Indian myths, which allows every generation to reinterpret them within the circumference of its own experience. Indian rituals and customs have been imagined to be flexible and open-ended. Take the custom of immersion of idols. Each year we go to great lengths to design and craft the deities in myriad ways giving, free expression to our creativity, then we make them come alive in all their embedded and potential significance as statements of renewal of our commitment to the right values in life, whether they are connected with education and Saraswati during the Basant Panchami festival, or Durga and the benign face of power, during the Navratri festival or even Ganesha and the spirit of well-being, during Ganesh Chaturthi. On could stretch it a little further and include the exploding effigies of King Ravana and his clan during the Dussehra celebrations, in these rituals of renewal and commitment to right values in everyday life.

We engage with the deities in a spirit of renewing our bonds and our understanding of how to live and what to do in difficult times that we are in. We actually reinvent ourselves in the process, or surely we would all be well on our way to perdition by now. Instead we see a great resurgence everytime through our engagement with our cultural life, aside from the roller-coaster ride that modern life has become. The market is not far behind in appropriating spiritual space for its own single-minded pursuit for profit. One wishes however that these occasions would also be seen as opportunities for reinventing the seller/buyer relationship as well. Believe us there is a great opportunity for the market in using the festival driven spirit of India to make India the most sustainable nation today. Incidentally it should not at all be difficult as the spirit of sustainability is in the genetic makeup of the Indian consumer.

This year a Skoda Octavia advertisement has none other than Lord Ganesh as the company’s brand ambassador. “The God is in the details”, goes the advertisement’s punchline. And the car likens itself to none other than the Lord himself.

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